Someone had me do this on Facebook, so I thought I would share it here as well.

1. I abhor bureaucracy. The mere fact that it is so unnecessarily hard to spell should tell you something about it

2. My childhood family nickname was Bubble Butt. I don't hang out with my family often anymore.

3. I'm terrified of making phone calls

4. I used to write poetry in high school. When other kids looked up to Kurt Cobain, I idolized e.e. cummings.

5. I hated all things French before it was popular to hate all things French (aside from the French Kiss, French Bread and French Toast; none of which are really French)

6. I love personification (in class I have a stapler named Quill who is Taiwanese), metaphor (because it's powerful), simile (because it's humble) and alliteration (because it's fun)

7. I'm an INFJ

8. When I was a child, I wanted to design baseball stadiums and I always thought that Jackie Robinson deserved a ballpark named after him.

9. The best part of working at a grocery store was the music. When I'd hear Carly Simon, Fleetwood Mac or the Eagles, I felt the rare moment of sharing something in common with my dad. It would remind me of sitting on shag carpet and listening to it on vinyl. I'd always want to call him up on the phone and say, "I love you," if it weren't for #3 on this list

10. I don't think churches should have American flags at the front nor do I believe it's okay to post Bible verses on courthouses

11. My spiritual journey started after a friend committed suicide. I spent an entire year reading a translation of the Koran, a bunch of existentialist novels, the Tao and the Bible. It started out kind-of logical at first, but then I fell in love with Jesus.

12. The greatest teacher I've ever known, only taught formally for a semester. He now spends his hours hanging out with soldiers in Germany.

13. My wife is hotter today than the day I met her. The mere fact that I mention this will probably embarrass her. But really, she's hot and I have no idea how I ended up with her.

14. I used to have really long hair. It was thin, but it was shiny and blonde so that sort-of made up for it.

15. The only reason I don't get a tattoo is that I'm afraid of pain.

16. I wrote "Kick a Puppy" as our daily Language Learning Goal on the Blackboard Configuration. To this day, 27 district representatives have looked at it and never noticed.

17. I secretly wish I were Scottish. There's nothing cool about Brittish anscestry. It's all a lot of bland food and years of imperial domination. But a Scottsman can claim victim status, wear a skirt, enjoy plaid and still be considered a badass.

18. I can't fix anything.

19. My reason for teaching isn't to change the world or make a difference, but to be faithful to a sacred vocation

20. I hate when movies draw bulls with utters - it's no wonder that the current generation is so gender confused

21. Being a dad has turned out to be more fun than I would have ever imagined . . . until the day I have to clean poop out of the bathtub

22. My favorite book of all time is Ecclesiastes, but I'm probably most influenced by Neil Postman - oh well, both authors were Jewish, so it's not too far off

23. As a teacher, I have no rules, no seating chart, no punishments or rewards and my students behave well. It confirms my libertarian leanings. (See, alliteration right there.)

24. I'm more like Macbeth than I'd like to be.

25. I don't own a cell phone. See #3 and the latter half of #22 for reasons why.

I've been tutoring Johnny since he was in fifth grade and now he's in college. The adjustment has been challenging, with a constant sense that he's an alien in a sea of suburbia. I watch him attempt to navigate the massive library, make sense out of online homework and interact with students from a higher socioeconomic background. Every week, I notice bits and pieces missing from his education. I feel bad that I never taught him how to research. I failed to educate him on marginaliziation and the social norms of the middle class. More importantly, I failed to pursue a dialogue about the ultimate goal of education.

He explains to me, "John, I feel like I'm running. I know what I'm running from, but I don't know what I'm running toward." Johnny realizes that he wants to leave aspects of his background. He's bothered by the tagging, the crime, the moments that he describes as "ghetto." Yet, there's also a ton of shame attached to it. There's a sense of embaressment and he's not even sure of its source.

On the other hand, nobody ever articulated a vision of what he could become. Don't get me wrong, his school talked to him about future career choices. Yet, what he's attempting to navigate is what he wants his life to be. Johnny feels lost. He realizes that he doesn't want to live in poverty, but he also isn't quite inspired by Pergo floors, a Volvo and listening to conservative talk radio.

I'm not even sure what the dialogue should look like, but it seems to me that "What do you want to be when you grow up?" should be more than "What job do you want to have?" Schools should engage students in a process of exploration where they can learn about themselves, their world and their sense of place within it.

When I first began teaching, the term "art" conjured up images of downtown studio apartments with a solitary figure brooding over the loneliness of the post-modern existence. I'd imagine a blank canvas and a mess of oil paints or a hunk of clay and a single figure huddled over it. When I first considered using art in class, it was more in the realm of "art appreciation," subtly sending students the message that creativity is best left for The Masters; usually white, dead, famous men.

After awhile, I considered having students paint a mural. We brainstormed the topics and a team of four artists drew composite sketches that would later transform into one larger mural. One student could draw figures well, but had a difficulty generating new ideas. Another student could help with depth and proportion, but had little interest in drawing people. Eventually, we had an overall sketch. Later, a team of students sketched squares on a large sheet and students used pencil to recreate the first sketch.

By the time we began painting, the number of students involved had grown to roughly sixty. Students volunteered their skills. It was sort-of an organized anarchy, an experiment in social libertarianism. It was free jazz on a blank canvas (albeit a canvas made out of a cheap white sheet from a thrift store).

I wonder if we miss the point in how the U.S. tends to define art. We tend to view artistic endeavors through an individualistic, scientific, skills-based filter. However, when we paint murals together as a class, the act is collective (though retaining elements of the individual voice), non-scientific and not based upon a system of expertise. Instead, students often make mistakes and learn as they go. The process is messy (simply look at the paint on my classroom carpet) but the end result is powerful.

In my first education class, the teacher introduced the class to each of the lovely "isms."  We could choose behaviorism, constructivism, humanism, classicism and a host of various ideologies to guide our educational philosophy.  I learned about the bearded neo-Marxists of critical pedagogy and the clown experiements of the social learning theory and the Skinner boxes of behaviorism.  I don't regret learning the theory.  

However, each idea had to fit within an imaginary chart with rigid lines and we, as students, had to choose a camp so that we could claim to be right and prove the other ideas wrong.  It was like choosing a sports team or, worse, engaging in a form of educational tribalism, where I had to vote each ism of the island until my favorite theory won the Survivor competition.  Everything was black-and-white, with no room for mystery and paradox.  

Since then I have seen some validity in each educational theory.  It's not that I believe they are all "right."  I still believe in either/or thinking.  I'm not a post-modern teacher asking kids to ponder the universe while chasing daisies.  Some theories hold more validity than others.  However, there is often overlap between ideas and so I'm making a list of some of the both/and concepts I've seen in my teaching experience:

• Motivation is both intrinsic and extrinsic - for example, I drive safely because I care about the other drivers and yet I also don't want a speeding ticket
• A teacher must be confident and humble
• A teacher should use both qualitative and quantitative data
• The teacher must choose when to conform to the system and when to rebel against it in an ongoing paradox of being a respected sage and a non-conformist lunatic
• Instruction should be differentiated for each student, yet there needs to be some element of the universals for all children
• Students are a mix of being both "fearfully and wonderfully made" and yet horribly flawed - just like teachers
• Students create their own knowledge (constructivism), yet there are times when knowledge is transferred (transmission theory)
• We need to meet students at their level, within the language of their culture (being relevant) and yet we can't conform to it (being entertaining)
• In service learning, I want students to be servants of their community while also thinking critically about what to change about their community

These are just a few.  If you have any other both/and ideas,I'd love to read your feedback.

I've heard teachers use other names for Ning, because "social network" can have some negative connotations.  People imagine creepy pedophiles looking for kids on Myspace.  Or they imagine a group of conspiracy theorists leaving comments about Obama being the anti-Christ.  Or it simply sounds like a recipe for social anarchy.  

In my experience, Ning represents the digital language that is most native to my students.  In the beginning of the year, when I ask students if they have written blogs, wikis or websites, the answer is a resounding "no."  However, even students lacking computer access have a Myspace or Facebook account (oddly enough, there seems to be a corresponding trend that the closer a student is to middle class, the more likely he or she is to choose Facebook over Myspace).  It makes sense, then, to create a social network for an educational setting.  

The greatest asset of a social network is that students can set up individual profiles and then seamlessly write blog posts, comment on blog posts, join the forum, comment on pictures (in this case, they are typically pictures from the Library of Congress and deal with our current history unit) and it's all contained within the online community that extends from the classroom.  Students like the fact that they can collaborate easily, ask questions to one another and link resources from their Google documents, wikis and blogs.  The social network becomes a hub where they meet, a sort-of shared space in the digital anarchy that they navigate.  

I'm not much of a control freak, but I like the fact that it's so easy to check which students have written blogs and commented in the forum.  It's worked out really well for sending class-wide bulletins, posting information about our service projects, pictures of projects and reminders of assignments.  I like the fact that I can set the features, such as "threaded" or "unthreaded" discussion topics.  I can comment quickly without leaving the site.  

I will offer a few words of caution.  Editing the profile can be difficult for students in the beginning.  There are no CSS overrides, so students might get frustrated that it is not much of a blank canvas.  Also, I have to monitor the comments to prevent any type of bullying (which hasn't occured yet).  Still, Ning has been a phenomenal tool.  

Incidentally, I created a Learning with IMPACT social network if anyone wants to try it out.  I'm not sure what it will be in the long term.  I guess my goal would be to spark a dialogue about authentic education in the Digital Age. 

 

I made this last year. Some of you have seen it before. The basic idea is comparing teeth cleaning with classroom climate. I'm not a great "video guy," but I might try doing some more video blog posts in the future.

I was excited when Obama pledged to get rid of Gitmo.  It's nice to have a president who can distinguish between interrogation and torture.  Similarly, I was pleased to see Obama's call for bipartisanship reform of the financial institutions.  I genuinely believe he will be a pragmatic, centrist president.  

On the other hand, I felt dissapointed by a few of his initial acts in office.  Despite his calls for multilateralism and "the moral high ground," his administration had no qualms about air strikes in Pakistan.  This strikes me as a very Bush-like thing to do; getting rid of terrorism in the immediate while pissing off a nation that is teetering between democracy and Islamic fundamentalism.  I was also dissapointed by his decision to provide foreign aid to doctors who participate in abortions.  While I am politically pro-choice, I am personally pro-life and I do not think the government should fund death - whether that death is the death penalty, war or abortion. 

People often ask how they should configure a classroom if they have computers. If they are laptops, the answers are a little easier. This is a brief exploration into how a teacher can configure the seating chart. By the way, yes, that is me. It was my third video and I decided I wanted to be "in character," so I tossed on a whig and acted like a nerd. If any nerd is reading this, I sincerely apologize. I am a geek myself, so I consider us kindred cousins.

This is a strategy that has worked well for me in my social studies class. It is a blend of visual, spatial and kinesthetic.

I changed the new layout on this blog.  Yet, I wonder how many people won't see this, because they read it through a blog reader (RSS feed reader).  It doesn't really bother me, but I wonder what's lost in failing to see the visual side of blogging. 

At one time, I kept all of my favorite blogs on my own blog. I would visit each site, with the sense that I was travelling around an imaginary town and stopping by, eavesdropping on the conversation and occasionally adding my own thoughts. Later, I joined TeacherLingo and felt the sense of a place online, a sort-of pseudo staff lounge where people actually engaged in dialogue.

In recent months, I've added blogs to my "Blogs I Follow" and then used the Google Reader to check updates. While this approach has worked well for me, I'm thinking of moving back to the old-fashioned link-hopping approach. Although it's convenient to read each blog in Google Reader, I miss out on the nuances of each blog. I miss the moments someone changes a lay-out or adds a new widget or gadget or gidget (wasn't that the same lady who played the flying nun?)

Using a feed-reader feels a bit like having a conversation in a crowded room. Where I once visited my imaginary town, I now get the sense that everyone is altogether in a cocktail party, where I feel the need to visit everybody and therefore miss out on the lengthy dialogue of a home visit.

Which leads me to this Survey Saturday question:How do you access your favorite blogs?

Last Week's Results: How big of an issue is racism at your school?

Not an issue (0%)
A minor issue (53%) 
A major issue (33%)
I can't really tell (14%) 

Every year I have the students do an excercise to see what they believe about school and learning. Often, students view school as a prison, but learning as a journey.  On a good day, I feel like I'm Andy Dufresne from Shawshank Redemption and I get to play music in the prison, at least for awhile.  I don't get put "in the hole," but I do recieve solitary confinement in the long run.  Other times, I feel like I accidentally slip into a prison guard and resort to threats.  

I'm curious how my readers would answer the same sentence that my students use:

School is a ____________ and I am a _________________

Learning is a _____________ and I am a ________________

For me, the first date was always the worst.  I could never figure out the ground rules.  In many instances, it was unclear if the date was even a date.  What if it was simply coffee? What if we took separate cars? When should I pay?  It's amazing my wife gave me a chance and allowed me to ask her out on a second date. After all, I had taken her out to coffee and ended it with, "Well, have a nice day."  Not the most romantic closure.  

I mention this because it felt like an awkward date today as I passed my resumes out to various schools.  I suppose I should be careful with the "dating" metaphor when it refers to school.  Maybe it's more like finding a home; not a house, but a home.  I feel lost.  I feel cast aside after the death of Borman Middle School.  Out of a simple beauracratic rule, I am not highly qualified to teach self-contained.  So now I'm out on my own, starting from scratch, wandering around like a beggar or a salesman trying to sell an image of myself.  I'm a peddlar of myself, or at least of the image I try and project.  

I'm realizing now that, wherever I go, I will be the "new guy."  I'll have to make new friends.  I'll have to figure out new procedures.  I'll have to feel my way through the staff climate and the school culture.  I'll be the foreigner.  So, I'm left feeling a little awkward and a little sad.  

At one time, teachers remained connected to their community.  It was a parish concept, where a high school teacher remained in the town's lone high school for the span of a career.  Even in large cities, there was a sense of stability among administration and staff.  I wish we could recover that parish concept; the idea of living in the community, knowing the nuances of the neighborhoods and retaining a consistent staff culture.  

The assistant principal begins her pep talk by comparing our school's plight with that of the Arizona Cardinals at the beginning of the season.  At first, her metaphor fails to inspire.  After all, in football, the rules are the same for everyone.  Only the best players show up on the field.  In standardized testing, we expect everyone to be a Warner or a Fitzgerald.  In football, players can fit within differentiated positions, while in standardized testing, it is based upon an assumption that every person can play the same position the same way.  In football, you do not lose your status as a team if you are unsuccessful in a season.  According to NCLB, every team must make it to the Super Bowl.  

After awhile, though, the football metaphor begins to work.  As the assistant principal drones on about data and test scores, I start to think about the monotony of football practice.  It can almost kill the love of the game.  How often have we killed the love of learning with test practice booklets?  I think about the fans in the stands becoming critics of the coaches.  It's not too different from the politicians who blame the teachers as if they could run a classroom as well as us.  I think about the violence of the sport and the way it forces strong athletes to burn-out before they are forty.  Standardized education can do better than that: kill the desire to the extent that people quit pursuing an education after they have earned a bachelor's degree.  

Maybe football is the wrong metaphor after all. Standardized football is more like a mock apple pie.  It's all graham cracker and gue and recipes from a box.  It's a row of neophyte cooks who yearn to use authentic ingredients and bake a masterpiece.  Perhaps the point should not be to train students to make mock apple pie; where they will lose all motivation to pursue culinary arts. Instead, we should inspire chefs so that a mock apple pie will seem trivial and easy.  

The assistant principal adds, "Are we asking you to teach to the test?  Yes.  We ask future drivers to study the manual, don't we?"  (She fails to mention the real test is not the fill-in-the-bubble, but the test where you actually drive.) "We need to teach students how to take tests and how to practice.  Craft your questions each day as if it were the AIMS.  Then they'll pass. It's for our students.  We want the best for them." 

What she fails to realize is that teaching to the test fails our students.  However, if I teach to the student, they will have a higher chance of passing the test.  Last year, we de-emphasized AIMS.  Our team used technology, service learning, creativity and critical thinking.  Students responded with higher motivation and aced the standardized tests.  Students had a deeper reason to learn. True, we used data to help determine specific skills for tutoring.  However, passing the test was never the bottom line.  Instead, we wanted to see students improve in reading and writing.

During AIMS, many students complained that it was easy and boring.  They hated the test, but they passed it. What if the best way to increase standardized tests is to teach to the student rather than teaching to the test?

Today I posed the question to my students, "Will Obama's presidency change race relations in America?" The dialogue was great, if a little too abstract. It was easy for them to wax idealistic, given their age and the clear contrast to the pictures we'd seen of Civil Rights protestors being sprayed with water hoses or dodging attack dogs. Honestly, the tone at the school was almost festive, as if it were the Super Bowl.

When I drove up to our house, I noticed a neighbor's house. His flag was flown upside down at half-mast. I felt conflicted about the old man. On one hand, I cannot condone racism. Yet, I know he was a product of his culture and his time. It was harder, however, when a teacher in the staff lounge commented, "So now that we elected a terrorist, let's see how long it is before Iran invades America."

I guess I'm somewhere in between. On one hand, I want to see Obama succeed. I'd love to see him prove to mainstream America that a minority can not only get elected, but actually succeed in the process. Yet, there is a lingering doubt in my mind. It's not in his ability. After all, many presidents have succeeded despite having a lack of experience. Rather, I'm worried that the bar is set too high; that people have messianic hopes for Obama and that they have not heard his pragmatic warnings about growth being slow.

It's easy to see Civil Rights as being something progressive - an inevitable process that America is experiencing. However, history suggests otherwise. During Reconstruction, blacks succeeded in universities, sports, business and politics. However, white supremicists painted it as an era of "carpetbaggers" and black irresponsibility. For another seventy years, this dominate white supremicist narrative colored American pop culture, from the early silent films with black face to the racist minstrel shows to the "classic" Birth of a Nation where the KKK were the heroes to the blatantly racist comments of Woodrow Wilson and William Harding.

Perhaps the greatest accomplishment would be a decent presidency, where people had freedom to support and to criticize without being labeled a racist from either side. My hope is that, in four years, the arguments will be about policy rather than ridiculous debates about Jeremiah Wright or having the middle name Hussein. If he fails, my hope is that he fails because the Democratic platform fails. If he succeeds, let it be due to his ideas as well. If that's the case, then I'll be able to look back at today and say, "We moved forward."

I use on a daily basis with my students.  I like the fact that blogs are multifunctional and interactive.  We can embed presentations and video, add links to podcasts, write articles and in the process, students can add questions and comments.  Because my district is not strict with filters, I have been able to use Blogger.  The following are a few features that I enjoy with Blogger:

• Easy to customize the layout - students love this
• Multiple authors can work on the same blog
• Multiple people can work on the same account (for example, I have a Social Voice Student account and the entire class can log in at the same time).  This has also allowed some of the blog posts to function like a wiki - where any student can edit the same article
• Students can write on Google Docs and then publish to Blogger

I set up my blogs in three-tier process:

Tier One: Personal Blogs

Students keep a journal connected to social studies.  This includes and initial "History of Me" where they think through their own narrative history, personal geography, cultural background, etc.  They add me as a blog viewer and set it to private.  I can then add questions and comments in a dialogue with each student.  

Tier Two: Class-wide Blogs

Each student has a social studies blog where they broadcast their thoughts to the class.  They add one another as readers and I show them how to become "followers" of one another.  This enables them to use Google Reader and comment on one another's blogs.  This blog tends to be more persuasive in nature and involves answering more theoretical / philosophical questions.  I also have a class-wide Homework Help blog where they can post questions and respond to one another each night.  The questions are rarely social studies related.  They usually involve math, but at least they are using it. 

Tier Three: Public Blogs

I set up a Social Voice Student account where students post articles for our online social studies magazine and our various Social Voice Blogs (Face the Issues, Expanding Voice, Meaningful Math, Social Soapbox, Cooking with Culture).  These are set to public, so I explain to students the importance of online safety and anonymity. I also include an online discussion blog, with critical thinking questions.  The result has been that students really go through the writing process using Google Docs and then posting the articles online.  Some of them have even begun sharing their documents and peer editing / adding comments at the document level.   

When I first began long-distance running, I prefered the feel of smooth concrete.  Being a bit too abstract (read "unable to pay attention to what's in front of me") it was nice to guarantee that everything was flat and clean.  Concrete worked fine at first, but after my third 14 miler, my knees hurt.  So did my ankles.  When I began talking to experienced runners, they suggested I switch to running on dirt.  

Apparently humans weren't made for concrete.  Though the surface looks benign, it can be dangerous when someone attempts a twenty-miler.  When I first switched to running on the canal, it was difficult.  Here, I had to avoid rocks, deal with small hills and check ahead of time when it rained.  Besides, it was slower than concrete. It seemed counterintuitive to me.  The concrete looked so much nicer, but the dirt turned out to save my legs.  

So, on my twenty-two mile run today, I started thinking about dirt and concrete.  There's not a lot of stimulation, so it's easy to focus on the mundane and begin crafting little metaphors to pass the time.  I started to think about the journey of a teacher.  I can choose the path of standardized education.  It's smooth.  It looks nice.  It's clean and effecient and faster than the dirt road.  Worksheets, textbooks with teacher's guides, standardized tests - these are part of a clean, crisp, industrial path that's as solid as concrete.  It seems to work at first. Except it leads to burn-out, because we're not made for concrete.  

The authentic path made of dirt and rocks and crushed rocks looks more dangeorus.  After all, giving a teacher freedom to develop resources, use authentic assessment and teach with best practices seems like asking for someone to sprint on rocks.  It's slower.  It's filled with ups and downs.  It's more challenging.  Yet, it's how teachers are designed.  We're not made for concrete.  We're made for the earthy reality of authenticity.  

In the staff lounge, as teachers gear up for the Cardinals game, I casually mention that I won't watch but a few minutes of it.  

"Why's that?" a teacher asks. 

"I find football boring." 

"At least the cheerleaders are interesting," a teacher shoots back.  

"Hey, have you ever noticed that there are many African-Americans on the team, but all the cheerleaders are white?  What's up with that?" 

The room grows silent.  

"Really, I'm serious.  It seems to me that our culture believes blacks can be powerful and athletic, but not beautiful. I mean, we can't deny that football and race are intertwined.  The only reason Arizona created an MLK Day was so that we could host the Super Bowl." 

Finally, someone pulls me aside and tells me that my comment could be considered racist.  I explain that a person is "racist" and comments are "racial."  He says that it's not a time for semantics.  Apparently, it's also not the time for an honest conversation about race. 

It got me thinking about how quick we are on campus to be "colorblind," when we need to have honest dialogue about race.  It permeates so much of our society and how we interact with one another.  A simple, "just get over it," can feel like a slap in the face.  In studying the Civil Rights Movement, my students are starving for a discussion about race.  Sometimes it's personal, with stories and experiences.  Other times, it's philosophical (Is race a social construct? Is it a belief? an action? an attitude?)  I've been surprised by my students' perspectives, especially about how often racial bullying occurs. 

So for this Survey Saturday . . . er, Sunday (sorry folks) the question deals with race:

How would big of an issue is racism at your school?

Journalists and politicians are hailing Captain Sullenburger (whose nickname is Captain Sully) as a hero for his crash landing yesterday. Indeed, he was able to land the jet properly, keep passengers calm, direct the passengers afterward and still go back into the jet to make sure there were no stranded passengers.

I have no issue with people calling him a hero. Yet, the news presents him as a figure who rose up in an extraordinary circumstance - as though it were a random miracle. The reality is that Captain Sully has spent a lifetime pursuing an education designed for such circumstances. He has a master's degree in psychology, experience in behavioral sociology, hundreds of hours logged in as a commercial pilot, a master's in communication, experience under stress as a fighter pilot and he has spent the last decade teaching safety and learning about how people interact in stressful times.

His actions yesterday demonstrate a reality about education. Both in the informal experiences and in the formal educational process, people often have no idea how they will use a specific skill. Yet, over the course of a lifetime, this education works as a synthesis to prepare someone for a life experience. The pilot needed to communicate to passengers and teach them what to do. Thus, his degrees and psychology and communication might have made a difference. Then again, so did his experience handling stress and studying sociology.

What this suggests to me is that the focus on education ought to be a well-rounded learning experience that fuels further learning for life. It might not seem to prepare people for "job skills" but it just might be the very thing a person needs in any job. Perhaps the chief goal of education is not a better job, but rather learning to think well about life.

The following link is a short response that one of my students wrote for our Social Soapbox blog. I enjoyed it, because I can see a part of my view of education reflected in this student's thoughts about school. She explained when she e-mailed it that my class is a place of freedom, which honestly made me feel better than any award or teacher evaluation.

Yesterday, when I drove home from work, I had a lingering sense that I should be doing more.  My assignments were graded.  Our service projects were all planned.  I knew my next few day's lesson plans.  Still, there was this sense that I felt a little lost, a little overwhelmed - as if there was something, almost intangible that I wasn't accomplishing.  

I'm not sure where this comes from, but I feel this way sometimes.  It's the idea that I am not working hard enough or not accomplishing enough.  Perhaps it's a result of a workaholic dad, who would boast about the hours he worked.  Maybe it's the larger feeling of responsibility in teaching; that desire to ensure all students are learning.  It's the sense that maybe I should write more comments on student work or go take kids to the food bank more often or create more podcasts and videos.  It's the guilt of realizing that, halfway through the year, I still have students that I don't know very well.  

I bring this up, because I know that ultimately teachers make an impact when they stop trying so hard to make an impact.  I know that teaching is a vocation and that it's my job to be faithful rather than successful.  Still, I'm curious if this nagging sense of "needing to do more" is common among teachers. 

Here are some of the ways to reach me

My E-mail: socialvoice@gmail.com

Facebook: My Page

Google Profile: Here it is

Teacherlingo: Musings from a Not-So-Master Teacher

Good Reads: My Profile

Twitter: @johntspencer

Two of my most important classes could be considered by some as "fluff," easy electives that nearly guaranteed an A.  My freshman year, I took public speaking and keyboarding.  I was shy in front of a crowd.  I would freeze up and stop talking.  I would hold a script and shake so bad that the rattling paper was louder than me.  I had no idea how to organize an outline, grab the listener's attention, use space proximity or speak with emphasis.  However, in that class, I began to practice. After a few mediocre speeches, I hit a stride and gained confidence.  I learned how to outline my thoughts mentally and speak without a notecard.  I learned the cadence of speech, proper annunciation techniques and how to use emphasis.  

That same year, I took keyboarding.  I am piss-poor at motor memory and kinesthetic learning, so I struggled to learn basic typing.  Our teacher made us use typewriters at first and she would cover our hands with a curtain.  I made some major mistakes and within the first two weeks I could only type ten words per minute. I'm not sure if it was a typing error or a Freudian slip that involved the sentences "The pen is mightier than the sword." However, I realized the necessity to re-read what I had typed.  By the end of the semester, I could type about thirty words per minute.  

On a daily basis, I use my public speaking skills and my typing skills.  In college, I wrote papers constantly. Now, I'm typing lesson plans, writing blogs, creating lesson materials and answering e-mails.  I can't imagine being stuck in the "hunt and peck" mode.  I mention both classes, because there is a strong voice within the Core Curriculum movement that suggests students do not need elective classes.  Instead, all students should be learning more math, science, reading and writing.  This will prepare society with more engineers and doctors.  Often, these Core Curriculum advocates speak loudly about accountability and resort to fear-mongering about India developing more engineers. 

The problem with this thinking is that not all students will become doctors and engineers.  In the New Economy, we have no clear idea of what the job will be.  While I agree with learning math and science and reading and writing, I also know that many of the elective classes provide practical skills to help students live well.  

PE might seem a joke, until one reads the research about excercise and the mental processes. Besides, with a nation facing an obesity epidemic, PE now seems vital.  Music might seem like an easy class to cut.  It's expensive and it cuts out of Core Curriculum time.  However, students who succeed in music have an easier time learning concepts in both math and language arts.  In the Digital Age, where creativity has a high price tag, classes like art and woodworking might be more valuable than first imagined.  In most professions, communication is key (especially in the global economic shift toward collaborative careers).  Thus, classes like drama and public speaking become crucial.  

I am forever grateful for my English teachers who helped me to read and write and conduct research.  I'm glad I learned some basic math.  I'm sure it has helped me think logically and solve problems.  However, many of the elective classes were just as important in shaping who I have become today. 

Many teachers choosing a tech-integrated approach have switched from Google Accounts to Zoho.  In general, Zoho has a more logical flow and resembles Microsoft Office.  The user interface reminds me of a course management system, with each of the Zoho applications available from the same page (all on the left column).  Google, on the other hand, is more intuitive and runs more like a web of integrated programs - often with the ability to use multiple programs within each other (for example, publishing a document to a blog).  

The following chart is designed to give you an overall comparison of a basic Google Account and a basic Zoho account.  There are a few features I left out from both, mostly because I never use them.  (For example, Google's social networking site Orkut). 

	Google	Zoho
Word Processing / Shared Documents	Easy, intuitive user interface, simple, great templates available. Easy to embed into Blogger.	More complicated, more options, resembles the toolbar of Microsoft Word
Spreadsheets	Very simple, with the auto-fill features, but lacking on some of the complexities of Excel. Easy to share or publish.	Designed almost the same as Excel, with a complicated but easy to use tool bar. Easy to share or publish.
Presentations	Many templates available, very simple user interface, but a lack of features for the slides; easy to share	Many templates, professional-quality slides, almost identitical to PowerPoint, easy to share
Mail	Tons of space, easy to maneuver, color-coded tags, multiple tags, easy search, instant message and video are built in	Complicated tags, not very user-friendly, but still able to use multiple tags and search, instant message is not built in
Calendar	Able to make it public, option of color-coding it, capable of sharing calendars,	Harder to color-code, but a cool Smart Add feature, capable of sharing calendars
Wiki	The combination of wiki and website in Google Sites has worked well.  However, it can seem complicated for some students to navigated.	Very similar to Google Sites and PBwiki. Easy to add plug-ins.  Unfortunately, there aren't many styles to choose on how the page looks visually.
Desktop	The iGoogle Feature has a very intuitive feel, tons of gadgets and easy to customize	Zoho's gadgets are much like the iGoogle. Though there are fewer official gadgets, adding new ones (using the HTML feature) is actually a little easier
Notebook	Easy to add sites and clips from sites as you research.  However, it lacks the features of a really good annotation program. Able to share it and use it when searching.	Very multi-functional.  Able to turn text into something that is edited, clipped, highlighted, etc.  Like a true annotation program. Also able to share it and comment on it.
Search	Go figure. It's Google, with the best search engine on the planet.	No search engine.
Maps	Google Maps (as well as Google Earth) are easy, intuitive, simple to use.  There are the street views, top views and map views.	No maps.
Photo Editing	Picasa is decent, but it lacks many of the features that other photo editing / hosting sites offer.	No Photo Editing
Tasks	No Tasks	A cool feature that can work within e-mail and calendar that allows the user to keep track of tasks.
Notes	No Notes	A sticky note program allowing the user to create small remindres
Blogs	Blogger has been my favorite. It's easy to use, has a customizable layout, multiple authors, many gadgets.	No Blog
Blog Reader	Google Reader is becoming much better and the feeds are now easier to find.	No Reader

The term "educational system" offers a clue to how people think of learning.  Other words might include "process" or "structure."  Hiding behind such words is an unspoken metaphor; the notion that teaching is a factory where everything is uniform, standardized and effecient.  From the "observable behaviors" in lesson objectives to the rote-memorization, pre-packaged curriculum, schools remain enamored with a 19th century model.  

Perhaps a factory is the wrong metaphor.  Maybe the educational system is more like the Titanic. It is bulky and powerful – a colossal achievement of scientific progress. Like the Titanic, curriculum planners focus on the façade – the measurable outcomes that one can see empirically. High achievers deserve recognition with fancy seats and awards assemblies, while the low achievers raise mischief on the bottom deck, underground and ignored. 

Driven by data, it seems unsinkable. As long as we, as teachers, can play the tune and make the people at the top dance, we accomplish our task. Until it hits the iceberg of life, where no one cares if a person memorized the fifty capitals or knows which pilot was the first to break the sound barrier. At that point, the greater skills might involve higher level thinking, creativity, communication and problem-solving - all of which have no place on the Titanic.  

Yet, blocked by the hubris of authority, the educational scientists are unable to see that it is sinking. The band plays on . . . or so they think. But here’s the thing: they’re so busy in the captain’s chamber choosing new stains for the deck that they don’t realize that we’re passing out life vests. Sure, there’s music, but it’s coming from the passengers, who have found a subtle way to turn the artificial entertainment into a place for creativity and authenticity.  When the iceberg hits, some of the students will hit a hypothermic shock.  Yet, if I've done my job well, they'll have a life vest and perhaps some type of knowledge in how to make it in life outside the Titanic.

One of the controversial issues connected to Obama's teacher plan is whether he'll retain teacher tenure and whether he will continue with performance pay.  On first glance, I agree with getting rid of tenure.  Bad teachers need to leave regardless of how long they have been teaching.  Good teachers deserve a little something extra.  So why not money, right?

The problem, though, is that good teachers do not teach out of an economic motive.  The best teachers love the students, enjoy the subject and find a motive in some type of a social norm (usually making a difference, loving the students, serving the population) rather than an economic norm.  When it becomes an economic norm, we turn teachers into consumers who work for a paycheck.  The problem with this concept is that no paycheck can pay a teacher what he or she deserves.  It's like giving a check to one's wife, saying, "Great sex, honey, how about a grand."  Increasing the pay won't change the fact that a husband are wife are held together by a different bond.  

It gets more complicated.  Studies have shown that when you add an extrinsic motivation, the intrinsic motivation decreases.  It's an inverse relationship.  (Alfie Kohn has conducted interesting research on this) Also, how will one define "performance."  If it's based upon standardized tests, we run into issues of test bias, a lack of reliability and the fact that much of education cannot be quantified.  This is especially rare give the fact that test questions are re-normed each year to guarantee that most studetns fail. If it's based upon growth rather than performance, it punishes those who teach gifted and honors and have "topped out."  

If I were to "reward" a teacher, my solution would be to offer more creative control, fewer meetings to attend and opportunities to develop innovative projects.  Give quality teachers more freedom and responsibility.  Give struggling teachers more support.  I doubt that this idea would sell well to the public, though.  It probably sounds too "soft" and lacks the langauge of accountability.  

So, I'm curious what people think of this.  Should teachers receive performance pay?

In the five years of teaching at Borman Middle School, I have taught professional development in various formats and in different venues. For example, I was able to teach small groups, whole-staff and district-wide inservices. I taught isolated workshops and semester-long professional development classes. I used face-to-face interaction and developed Teacher Commons as an online format for professional development.You might be interested in a blog post I wrote about how schools could change professional development.

The following is a list of professional development I conducted. I have included a few links for more in-depth resources connected to the professional development.

• Classroom Leadership: A staff-wide, two hour professional development offering practical strategies for classroom management
• Community Involvement in an Urban Setting: A brief in-service workshop for all first-year teachers in the Cartwright School District
• Neighborhood Ministries: I developed a summer training program integrating hands-on experiences, in-depth analysis and reflective questioning for summer interns new to the urban culture and I have conducted multiple training sessions on age appropriate discipline, understanding the values of low-SES populations and community involvement that empowers urban youth
• Project Social Voice: An intensive, four-week, bi-weekly training that included the development of a technology-integrated curriculum
• Social Studies 2.0: A two-hour workshop about integrating technology into the social studies curriculum
• Tech-Integration Classes: A semester-long weekly professional development class on integrating technology for meaningful learning
• Teacher Commons: An online method of professional development using Web 2.0 technology

The bottom mural reminds me of the lesson: it's all about the journey, the community, the diversity and the creativity of living life well

Brad the Philosopher warned me that all teachers make enemies. The important thing is who your enemies are. When I was in my first year of teaching, I made enemies with a few students. I waged a war against talking and handled my class as a dictator - at least toward the talkers. I still feel bad about a few of the war victims. Later, I made enemies with staff, as I crowned myself the expert on all things educational. Fortunately, I have no student or staff enemies right now. My enemy is now the faceless Big Brother in the educational system.

I learned today that, at the close of this year, they'll be painting over all of our murals. Apparently, it needs to be a "clean slate." I didn't realize that my students had made the slate dirty, but they'll be whitewashing the walls in an industrial paint, subtly silencing the voice of students. It was a nice experiment, the notion that creativity could boldly stand out in a place that looks like a prison.

I tried and I lost. But I feel a certain vindication in the ultimate reality. The students destroy Big Brother's property on a daily basis, but our murals go untouched. In the end, it wasn't the "failing students" of this supposed "ghetto population." Instead, it was the bureaucrat who vandalized; a bureaucrat of a different type of ghetto - an isolated, myopic, anti-creative, standardized mindset. I also feel a sense of satisfaction in a greater reality: the mural may be painted over, but the education my students received will endure forever. 

For me, this was a reminder of my core philosophy about education.  Javi the Hippie mentioned to me, "They can paint a wall, but they can't take away our mural.  It's the journey that matters. It's not the end product, because it's not a product at all."  Javi's right.  It's not a product, a commodity, a project or a business.  What matters is the journey, the relationship, the dialogue and the creativity.  Ultimately it is the human side, the creative, the interactive, the problem-solving aspect that will help students live well in a Digital Age.

If my goal is for students to think well about life then it makes no difference how many walls are white-washed, because education is not a "thing" one can take away. 

Someone warned me that all teachers make enemies. The important thing is who your enemies are. When I was in my first year of teaching, I made enemies with a few students. I waged a war against talking and handled my class as a dictator - at least toward the talkers. I still feel bad about a few of the war victims. Later, I made enemies with staff, as I crowned myself the expert on all things educational. Fortunately, I have no student or staff enemies right now. My enemy is now the faceless Big Brother in the educational system.

I learned today that, at the close of this year, they'll be painting over all of our murals. Apparently, it needs to be a "clean slate." I didn't realize that my students had made the slate dirty, but they'll be whitewashing the walls in an industrial paint, subtly silencing the voice of students. It was a nice experiment, the notion that creativity could boldly stand out in a place that looks like a prison.

I tried and I lost. But I feel a certain vindication in the ultimate reality. The students destroy Big Brother's property on a daily basis, but our murals go untouched. In the end, it wasn't the "failing students" of this supposed "ghetto population." Instead, it was the bureaucrat who vandalized; a bureaucrat of a different type of ghetto - an isolated, myopic, anti-creative, standardized mindset. I also feel a sense of satisfaction in a greater reality: the mural may be painted over, but the education my students received will endure forever.

In flipping through a Runner's World magazine, I notice an article about a knot fanatic.  He has an entire website devoted to the proper method of tying shoes.  For him, there is one uniform method of tying shoes and he has published books about it, filmed videos on the topic, created a website on it and stopped people at the mall to correct them.  (Oddly enough, he is shocked when strangers grow defesive when he attacks their knotting style).  Yep, he's pretty much a Knot Nazi, but I give him credit.  At least he feels passionate about something.    

I'm sure that a decent knot is important.  I've had a few moments in my life when I tripped because of untied shoes; nothing traumatic, no stitches or anything. I guess a good knot doesn't quite seem critical - certainly not big enough for a worldwide crusade.  For most people, the bigger issue is foot support, decent shoes and whether or not they are actually taking the time to run.  I've never met someone who says to me, "Man, I really want to start running, but I can't figure out these damn laces.  How do you tie them?"  

It gets me thinking about teaching.  We have all types of Knot Nazis promising to share something critical that will change the profession.  Each has a binder, a website, a host of videos and resources to prove that their small innovation will change teaching forever.  Though they will rarely stop someone in the mall, they feel self-justified in stopping my teaching to ask about a red binder.  The Knot Nazis base their methods on a presupposition of effeciency and uniformity, assuming that the very thing that works best for them will work well for all students.  Often, the founder of the innovations are passionate and therefore the ideas become contagious.  

In the long run, though, teachers endure a constant barrage of Knot Nazis.  So far, this has included:

• Obsession with Word Walls - my God, if kids can just read words from a wall, they will pass all standardized tests
• Blackboard Configurations - if every teacher has the same board format, students won't be confused and will pass the standardized tests
• Red Lesson Plan Binders - if teachers can keep lessons in a red binder, we'll teach better - it has to be red and it has to be at the corner of our desks and then students will pass the standardized tests
• Uniform lesson plan format - if all teachers use the same format, we'll teach better and students will pass the standardized tests
• Posting the six traits on the wall (rather than, say, using it when you assess work) - if kids see a picture of a lightbulb, they'll think of "ideas" and they'll pass the standardized tests
• Teacher Professional Development Binder - because we don't have enough binders as it is, this way, we can apply what we learn in in-services and then the students will learn and pass the standardized test
• Newer, prettier textbooks
• Limiting bell work to five minutes of class time

My point is that, after awhile, it seems like we lose sight on the big picture.  We fail to ask: Are students learning?  How do we know they are learning? What are we doing to motivate them? What are the best ways to assess them?  How do we provide interventions for lower students and enrichment for higher students?  What are the core philosophies that will guide us? 

Who I Am

I am a middle school teacher in a semi-urban enclave of Phoenix, Arizona. It's a beautiful barrio, but you wouldn't guess if all you examined were test scores and data charts.  To my core, I believe in authentic education.  I am fascinated by the constant tension of a classical, liberal arts education within the context of the Digital Age.  I'm part technocrat, part neo-Luddite.  

I have an amazing, beautiful wife and two sons and despite my propensity to desire time away, I really enjoy my time with them.  I love to drink coffee, listen to Sufjan Stevens, run for hours, read and write.  I have very few talents.  I'm pretty good at talking, decent at listening and okay at art.  I'm lucky to have found a career that fits my identity and personality and this absolutely limited skill set.  

About This Blog

Although the blog title is Learning with Impact, I believe that true impact occurs in a paradox.  The more I try to "make an impact," the less I impact a student.  The more I try to teach to the test, the worse students do on the test.  The more I focus on changing behaviors, the worse students behave.  The more I try to be relevant, the more irrelevant and hopelessly "uncool" I become. Yet, when I strive for authenticity, when I teach to the student, when I teach in a dialogue with students, I find that they often pass the test, think well, treat one another with respect and find my class to be relevant.  To me, this is what it means to "learn with impact."

I first used the term "impact" after admitting my first year that many of my strategies failed.  I asked the students to brainstorm the type of social studies class they wanted.  Out of our brainstorm, the most dominant values were: involvement in the community, meaningful learning, practical skills, accountability, creativity and technology literacy.  As much as I hate acronymns, this one stuck.  

Contacting Me / My 2.0 World

My E-mail: socialvoice@gmail.com

Twitter: johntspencer

Class Blog: Social Voice

Personal Blog: John Spencer: A Billion Blogs of Solitude 

Teacherlingo: Musings from a Not-So-Master Teacher

Good Reads: My Profile

Master's Project: Teacher Commons

"So, are you done with grading?" a teacher asks me in the staff lounge. 

"No, the students will have a test on Friday and that's the same day that their final projects are due."

"Wow.  So, their grades could really change.  How are they taking that?"

"Oh, they don't know their grades," I explain. 

"You don't at least give them progress reports?" he asks.  

"No, I tell them all a grading scale.  I explain to them how I weight each category and then I de-emphasize grades."

"What about the kids who fail?"

"They don't.  I don't have any F's this year.  Or D's for that matter.  What happens is this: the kids who aren't motivated by grades keep working hard and some of them who always felt the pressure of grades can relax and do better.  For the ones who normally do poorly, it's like a relief. The extrinsic motivation of a threat never worked.  It just made them do the bare minimum and then they'd get disruptive."

"What about the A students who are motivated by grades?"  

"I have that in my one honors class.  My goal with them is to see that the purpose of an education is not a high grade.  So, I de-emphasize he grades.  If they are motivated to get a good grade, they miss out on a lot of real learning.  But if they are motivated by learning, they'll still earn straight A's in the process."  

"What about work that isn't fun?" he asks.

"For me, the goal isn't fun.  I want to make it relevant and practical for them.  I want them to see it as authentic and interesting, but not necessarily fun."  

"But don't you still think kids need to know how they are doing?"

"Yeah, but can't it come without a number?  I mean, if we really taught for mastery, students would revise work, continue on projects and develop meaningful portfolios.  They would reflect on the learning process and we'd do the same."

He begins to laugh.  "Spencer, you're crazy.  But whatever works for you is great.  I just can't believe we're having this conversation in the staff lounge."  It makes me realize that I really do sound crazy some times when I challenge something as sacred as the letter-based grading system. 

The following is a list of paradigm shifts that have occured since I began integrating technology into the curriculum. Not all of these are bound to technology, but they resulted in my integration experience:

1. From the teacher as the source of knowledge to the teacher as a guide in acquiring knowledge


2. From summarizing a single source to synthesizing multiple sources (and assessing the bias within each)


3. From rough draft /final draft to an ongoing draft that leads toward mastery


4. From the teacher creating presentations to the student creating presentations


5. From synchronous dialogue to asynchronous dialogue


6. From singluar assignments to project based and problem-based learning


7. From tech-based lessons to tech-integrated lessons


8. From singular lesson plans to multiple lesson plans (with differentiated instruction)


9. From graphic organizers to in-depth mindtools (such as spreadsheets, concept maps, etc.)


10. From technology as entertainment to technology as a learning tool


11. From technology is either good or bad to technology is both good and bad - the notion that it's always a double-edged sword


12. From teacher-centered to student-centered learning


13. From a dependence on proprietary software to a constant use of freeware and open source


14. From teaching how to use technology to teaching with technology


15. From a linear to a non-linear style of studying history

The first time I tried Diet Coke, it tasted like battery acid dipped in sugar. After drinking it for a week (yes, I know how bad it is for you) it became my beverage of choice. Now, when someone offers me the real thing, I can't handle the flavor. Similarly, neither of my sons care too much for real Macaroni and Cheese. They prefer the artificial kind that comes out of the box and requires me to stir butter and milk and a powdery cheese substance.

I wonder how often this happens in education. Students raised on stacks of worksheets and artificial instruction don't know how to handle authentic learning. They freeze up at the bizarre flavors of critical thinking or analysis. When the questions do not come at the end of the chapter and there are no crossword puzzles, some kids react poorly. My hope is that they adjust to authentic learning so that they eventually identify the artificial flavor of education in a box.

I get the sense that teachers choose the boxed teaching for the same reason I sometimes make Mac and Cheese for my sons. It's easy. It's convenient. It's bland enough that no one can claim that it "tastes funny." Is it any accident that EdHelper and Hamburgar Helper have such similar names? They both serve the same end.

On tired days, I sometimes resort to education in a box. It's easy to just add water. So I pass out textbooks or I pop in a video with pre-fab questions. At first, it's nice. The students rarely get angry about it, but no one really enjoys it too much either. In the end, though, I always feel a certain guilt mixed with a tinge of relief when a student says, "Mr. Spencer. Today was boring. Can we go back to normal tomorrow?"

It seems like many of the people I've talked to lately have a grudge against anything "postmodern." It's trendy to be anti-postmodern, probably because it's now so mainstream and it's associated with coffee shops and indie music and a tolerance that tastes like a watered-down Bud Light. I think many of the critics of postmodernism have been a little unfair. I'll hear someone say, "they're so self-centered" or that they straddle the line between self-love and absolute narcissism.

While it may be a sympton of pride, I think people miss the point entirely. Postmodern authors write about themselves often out of humility. It seems arrogant to stand above others making gigantic claims about humanity. Modernism was so quick to claim authority and to create categories and systems. Can you really blame a postmodern writer for wanting to recover a subtle sense of mystery?

Many postmodernists are disillusioned with the tenets of modernism - the standardization and mechanization of humanity, the charts and graphs and barriers created artificially, the lack of authenticity, the destruction of community, the absolute embrace of globalism and technology. After years of blindly believing in the progress of a machine-run universe, people feel lost and vulnerable. I wonder how many modernists misinterpret postmodernism entirely.

Many modernists assume that, like the modernism, postmodernism is a progressive philosophy seeking to oust modernism and create something new. They apply their same filter on all things postmodern, believing that they can expose paradox as a contradiction and that they can parse out the nuances and layers of such a deliberately elusive philosophy. Most people I know who would be labeled postmodern (the rejection of the label is a pretty postmodern concept itself) hold an opposite view. They don't want to create something new. They want to recover something lost. They don't want to reject truth entirely, but rather they want to recover paradox and mystery and the personal connection we once had with truth.

This Week's Question: Which web 2.0 tools are most useful for education?

Web 2.0 tools have been all the rage lately.  Some of them make sense to me in an educational context (blogs, wikis, shared documents) while others seem less realistic in many elementary or secondary classrooms (sites such as Twitter or, to a certain extent, social networking sites).  For the purpose of defining Web 2.0, I'm going take out the mindtools.  Thus, I'll exclude spreadsheets, databases, conept maps and presentation software.  I'm not going to take out the multimedia tools, because many of them include  web 2.0 elements.  However, these are usually not as collaborative and interactive as most Web 2.0 sites.

Loosely stated, Web 2.0 is a paradigm shift in how to use the internet.  It's not an accident that Web 2.0 tools began within a postmodern context.  It's an elusive concept and hard to define (much like postmodernism itself)

In general, the shift is toward a more democratic participation in the internet. The shifts includes moving:

• from singluar hyperlinking to folksonomy (also called tags and labels)
• from singular authors to collaboration 
• from a predetermined set of services to user customization
• from passive to active participation - the audience is now the stage!
• from copywritten material to creative commons licensing

Again, for the purpose of this survey, I am excluding sites that some people consider to be Web 2.0 tools.  These include: concept maps, Google Earth, etc.

Last Week

Should unions endorse a candidate?

• Never (50%)
• It depends on the candidate  (18%)
• Yes  (18%)
• It makes no difference (12%)
  
  

When I teach students about career, college and budgeting, I always include a Career Philosophy. To me, it makes more sense to discuss "why work?" than to simply plan for a specific career; especially given the fact that most people will ditch their initial idea within the first few years of college.

Humanitarian Philosophy

Motive: Making a Difference

Core Question: Will I make a difference?

Perfect Job: firefighter, social worker, counselor, police officer

Pros: they have a strong desire to help others, a selfless sense of compassion, a well-developed sense of empathy

Cons: they can work too hard, get too discouraged and sometimes be so compassionate that they fail to speak the hard truth to people

Humanitarian Teacher: This is the teacher who spends long hours on student projects and who knows the class on a deep level. Often, people will assume bad motives, "She's just in it for the ego" or "He just wants to be their friends." Sadly, many Humanitarian Teachers hit a point of burn-out and can fail to take care of themselves.

Recognition Philosophy

Motive: Attaining some type of fame - think outside of just the movie star and athlete. This person wants to be known as an expert at what they do, to be famous within their career's sphere of influence (for example, a scientist who is known for research)

Core Question: Will people notice my contributions?

Perfect Job: conference speaker, politician, actor

Pros: feel important, influential and respected

Cons: it can feel empty, you become personally elusive while maintaining the facade of your image

Recognition Teacher: This is the teacher who is often more than competant at his or her job and who knows how to set boundaries. With the goal of being recognized, this teacher works carefully at PR (not always with a bad motive) toward getting a book published, a story in the newspaper or an idea to become popular.

Vocational Philosophy

Motive: Do something that fits who your identity (a combination of your passions, talent and temperament)

Core Question: Does this job fit who I am?

Perfect Job: artist, writer, singer,

Pros: you feel like you belong, you often enjoy it without the high expectations of constant enjoyment, you can stay with the career for the long haul

Cons: your job can become your life, given the fact that it's such a part of who you are

Vocational Teacher: Often people will assume this is the humanitarian teacher, because this teacher will work long hours and devote extra time to the students. However, unlike the Humanitarian Teacher, the Vocational Teacher is okay walking away and doesn't feel the intense stress of making a difference.

Hedonist Philosophy

Motive: Enjoy your job

Core Question: Is this job fun?

Perfect Job: ski instructor, personal trainer, starving actor

Pros: you get to do what you love doing on a daily basis

Cons: often doesn't pay enough, the enjoyment can diminish as you face the grueling admin tasks connected to the enjoyable job

The Hedonist Teacher: This is the teacher who has a great rapport with staff and students, who smiles often and seems to have a great time, but can sometimes fail to make the work challenging and can fall behind on admin tasks

Economic Philosophy

Motive: Good Pay

Core Question: Does this job pay enough?

Perfect Job: Tax lawyer, salesperson, district office personnel

Pros: You can enjoy your leisure comfortably and you don't have to let your job become your life

Cons: You don't enjoy your job, you can get greedy and you can become resentful

The Economic Teacher: Goes to school on contract hours, takes nothing home and volunteers on certain high-profile committees to move up the coporate latter

I'm interested in reading a book called, Why We're Not Emergent. After my friend Brad mentioned it, I looked it up on Amazon.  I started reading the heated debate between different groups who embrace the Emerging movement or who reject it entirely.  

It got me thinking about my own favorite spiritual authors.  If orthodoxy were a spectrum, I have some on the far side of unorthodox and others on the side of ultra-orthodoxy.  What I've realized, though, is that both sides usually have something important to say and often people build a straw model of the "bad guys" (whether it's Don Miller making fun of the formulas or R.C. Sproul knocking down any non-Calvanists).  

I've learned from the post-modernists how art, creativity, passion, community and narrative are something we lost in the modernist framework.  I am reminded by C.S. Lewis of the profound basic truths and the importance of loving God with my mind.  I see in Gustavo Gutierrez that there is a valid and biblical theology of liberation and that taking care of the poor is a big deal.  Yet, I am reminded by Ron Sider that empowering the poor can come from an evangelical perspective as well.  

My point is this: I'm not against the intense dialogue from both sides.  Often what seems like partisan ranckoring is a sincere desire to find and express truth.  Yet, I wonder how often the concepts of paradox and mystery are missing from the debate.  I wonder how often people build up a community and a following of people who think like them and miss out on the relevancy of anther's perspective. 

It also makes me wonder how often I do this, not so much in spiritual terms, but in education.  How often have I made a fake monument of the bad guys (standardized education) and try and knock it down without seeing the relevance of what they have to offer. 

Please join me in respectful discussion on provocative questions. I believe that dialogue can change how people view the world and I am no exception. Sometimes in teaching so often, I fail to recognize the need to listen and engage.

QUESTIONS
How do we teach social studies in an era when corporations are more powerful than nations?
Is compulsory education good for children?
Is it time to scrap homework?
Social Media Questions
What is your at-school playlist?
What should be free?
Can education make you a better person?
Does capitalism create or destroy greed?
How does technology shape the way we think?
What is more accurate: visuals or words?
Which is better: to be wise or to be happy? 
Is this how the world views the U.S.?
How we distinguish between what is real and what is fabricated in a medium built for entertainment?
Can wisdom be captured in a sentence? How about a tweet? How about a word?
Does objective beauty exist? Or is it always objective?
Which medium is a more powerful storyteller: film or books?
Would Jesus use Twitter?
Should schools pay students for good grades?
Do schools do a good job preparing students for the real world?
Is technology making us dumber or smarter?
What can children teach us?
Are we becoming cyborgs?
Is homeschooling better for children?
Is there ever a good reason for standardized testing?
What advice would you offer a brand new teacher?
Are we becoming entertainment addicts?
Do schools play a role in body image issues?
Which schools should offer online classes?
Should teachers share their religious views with students?
Does having a minority president change racial issues in the United States?

I'm not much of a "practical knowledge" guy. I am not easily enticed by a list of seven steps or twelve keys or fifty five rules. I do believe in sharing ideas, but I also know the best idea sharing occurs over a cup of coffee (or a more adult beverage if you prefer). It occurs in dialogue. However, I am breaking with my style and making a list of time-saving tips that have worked for me. I realize each classroom context is different, but here are mine:

1. Get rid of seating charts: kids know how to behave. If I let them choose where to sit, they often do a better job self-monitoring than I would do in creating a chart


2. Let students create bulletin boards at lunch time. Just have a group of five of them work on putting together a collage then staple student work. It looks cool and saves time.


3. Take a clipboard to professional development meetings and pretend to take notes while you grade student writing


4. See if you can have a few "Community Graders" who will read and assess student writing in-depth - this works best in self-contained environments


5. Outsource jobs like passing papers to students.


6. Go tech-integrated. It takes time initially, but I spend less time than ever on collecting papers, filing stacks of papers, etc.


7. Get a plastic bin and use hanging file folders, then add every category you can think of, including: grade now, each class period - pass back, paperwork to fill out, calendar, key contacts, hang up on walls


8. Go project-based and use simple checklists and then give in-depth feedback in the end. This way, you spend less time on the boring act of inputting grades


9. If tests are absolutely necessary, create an online version (I use Google Forms) and see if you can use the computer lab - or rotate students with class computers. Again, it's another reason to prefer creating your own class set of computers.


10. Don't read blog posts written by guys who claim to know time-saving tips. This alone might be the biggest waste of time imaginable


11. Make all photocopies at the beginning of a unit


12. Have a weekly homework assignment that has multiple choices on it and then allow students to use the options for an entire quarter


13. Check your e-mail before and after school, but avoid it during the rest of the day. If it's really "urgent" they have loudspeakers for a reason


14. Spend less time on documenting discipline and more time on developing solid lessons. Referrals, parent meetings and long phone calls rarely solve the problem. Increasing motivation and talking with the student are not only more effective, but also save time.


15. Keep one master calendar with all information on it. My favorite has been Google Calendar. The first day of school, add all the meetings and holidays and everything else that you could possibly need. I mention this, because I used to have a wall calendar and a desk calendar and a computer calendar and I wasted time moving back and forth between them.


16. When you go to your mailbox, throw out the crap you don't need then and there.


17. When you check your e-mail, address each one that's important and delete the rest. If the title is not important, delete it. You have no obligation to read about the school-wide candle sale.