I'm curious how often my blog readers post blogs themselves.  Are most blog readers also blog writers? Do people who write more read more?  Just curious about it.  So, today's Survey Saturday is: 

On average, how often do you create a blog post?

Last Week's Results

To what extent should a teacher share religious beliefs with students?

Never	4 (19%)
Only when asked, but without a dialogue	5 (23%)
Only when asked, but with a dialogue	7 (33%)
A teacher should be able to introduce it	3 (14%)
A teacher should be able to convert a student	2 (9%)

Vote on this poll

Five Foods I Wish I Could Enjoy

1. Lunch Meat - There are people at my school who assumed I was a vegetarian, because every "teacher reward" lunch involved sub sandwhiches.  I piled on any imaginable veggie to make up for the bland, slimy meat imposters.  It was so hard for me when teachers would say, "Isn't this so much better than when they used to order pizza?"  I'm pretty sure I have scars from the number of times I've had to bite my tongue. 
   
2. Fish - Oddly enough, I like it raw in sushi, but I hate fish.  It's hard when the best compliment I can say about a fish is that it doesn't taste "that fishy." Knowing how good fish are for my health, I wish I could stomache it.
3. Olives - These pesky vegetables(?) find a way into many a great casserole or pizza and ruin the flavor of everything.  I wish I could just enjoy the taste and move on with it. 
4. Fake cheese - I can't stand Kraft Mac and Cheese or the thin slices of cheese that fold out of plastic wrap.  I've had multiple times that I've attended a barbecue when the host assumed, "I like cheese on hamburgars so everyone else does as well."  
5. Citrus - I can't take anything that is sour.  I wish I enjoyed oranges, when we have three orange trees in the backyard. 

Beverages I Wish I Could Enjoy

1. Black Coffee - I'm not a coffee snob.  We drink Folgers at home.  However, it would be less of a hassle if I could just drink it plain. 
2. Cheap Beer - I love hefeweizen.  I enjoy tasting beer from various microbreweries.  I wish I could enjoy a Keystone Light, but I simply can't. I've looked like an elitist far too many times.
3. Coca-Cola - I got hooked on Diet Coke.  I know, I know, it will kill me someday.  Now I can't stand the taste of Coca-Cola.  
4. Lemonade - We know so many people with lemon trees and it sounds so quaint and romantic to say, "We had fresh-squeezed lemonade today."  I'll add orange juice to this list as well. 
5. Milk - It does a body good, but I need chocolate just to get it down.  

A student in my euphemistically titled, "Life Skills Math Exploratory Experience," (remedial math class) chose, for his statistics project to determine the ratio, percentage and decimal of the number of hours spent learning versus testing.  After the teacher tests, common assessments, Galileo (ironically a backward-thinking test named after a forward-thinking man) and AIMS.  He limited it to the four core-curriculum classes and determined that our students spend 53% of the school year testing.  

Pi in the Sky

Someone once told me that there were three ways to learn what a culture valued.  The first was to find the focal point of most rooms.  The next was to find the highest building.  The final method was to locate the storytellers.  In our culture, the focal point of the room is the television, the highest buildings are corporate skyscrapers (or, if one includes satellites, the answer is entertainment) and the storytellers are half-hour segments that blend amusement and commercialism via satellite.  That's the context I fight when I attempt to be relevant; a value system of commercialism and entertainment.  

On the school level, the highest point is the American Flag (reminding me that school is federalized) and the marquee sign advertising the AIMS test (reminiscent of McDonald's quantifiable boast about billions of hamburgars sold).  The focal point of each classroom is our Blackboard Configuration with the standard, the objective and our test scores posted on the wall.  The storytellers are the charts and graphs that speak (in a pseudo-scientific method) the cautionary tales of students who will fall through the cracks while India produces the next generation of engineers. 

Students arrive to me each year as consumers.  Forged by the culture of satellites and skyscrapers, they want a commodity.  If they cheat, I can't blame them.  They simply desire the best bang for their buck.  If I can make it seem fun, I am a hero.  Call it American Idol in Room Five. I have to impress the cynical Simons.  On the other hand, I must make the Feds happy, add something impressive to our marquee sign and tell the story of a rising plot graph so that we can win the globalized pissing contest.  

Ancient Approach

At one time, two other models existed.  On a one level, every culture believed in the notion of learning to think well about life.  Philosophers, religious gurus, priests and sages, poets and artists, moms and aunts participated in an ongoing dialogue about the meaning of life.  In most cultures, the highest building was either religious or social (a temple, a zygarrot, a cathedral), the focal point was a campfire or a crowded market and the storytellers were human.  Regardless of the culture, humanity shared a common belief that education meant learning to live well.

On a more practical level, the apprenticeship model existed.  In the earliest concept of vocation, students learned the true meaning of vocation, from the root form vocare, meaning a calling, a lifestyle, an identity of sorts.  It was a lifetime journey of perfecting a craft.  Whether it was a carptenter, a shoe maker or a grandmother teaching a mother, a mentoring relationship existed between the teacher and the student. At its best, this model allowed the master to contextualize the craft to the personality, needs and ability of the students. 

Don't get me wrong, the philosophical method often transformed into ugly indoctrination and the apprenticeship model lacked the freedom that most children deserve.  Still, I wonder if, when we think about "being relevant" in the Digital Age we might want to look back toward what we lost in our current pseudo-scientific factory before we create a newer, more technocratic assembly line. Maybe we don't need to look up to the satellites but down to the earth; not into the future, but back toward the past; not across the globe, but into our neighborhoods. 

A girl walks in wearing wrist bands for the first time.  She's a top student, quiet, unable to qualify for the honors class, but she finishes all her work and leads her small group with energy and passion.  Like many of the eighth-grade girls, she realizes that childhood is waning, so she fills her binder with cartoon characters.  On some level, she still thinks she can be a princess.  

If I knew her better, I would be blunt enough to ask her to take off the arm bands.  I'd remind her of why they became trendy in the first place.  I hate how much of my interaction is guided by my own fear and insecurity, but as she leaves, I ask her, "Is everything okay?  I mean, the arm bands, they can sometimes mean you're a cutter." I stumble awkwardly.  

"Yeah, a bunch of us did this on Friday night," and she pulls down the arm band to show me the dried bloody scabs.  

I'm struck by how casual she is.  Unlike the stereotypes of the "emo" crowd cutting, the trend is entirely mainstream. I'm used to students engaging in destructive behavior, but typically they are ones that provide fun or prove machismo.  Smoking weed and getting drunk have been the mainstays of youth for years. Cutting just seems reckless and painful without the fun of a buzz.   

"Why did you do this?" I ask. 

"It's a rush.  It's an escape.  It's like the pain that's inside finally matches the pain that's on the outside."  I'm not sure if she's thinking deep or if this line is a rationalization that students use socially to justify the phenomenon.  "It's hard to describe the moment a knife touches the skin."

I feel quesey at this point and tell her that I care about her, that I fear for her and that it's more dangerous than she imagines.  The language she uses is one of a drug addict and I'm too old and too remote to have much of a voice in her world.  She politely tells me that she knows how to take care of herself and that this will be a one-time thing.  I set up an appointment with the counselor, who tells me that "cutting parties" are the new slumber parties.  

A month later, she still wears the wrist bands. 

Photo Credit

Flickr Creative Commons

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pencilvaniajo/396558537/

This post is basically shameless self-promotion. My only consolation is that I'm promoting my students' blog instead of my own.

Our class blog / eZine is The Social Voice. For people who haven't visited the site in awhile, we've made some changes. All the visuals are now within copyright compliance and many of the blog's visuals are created by the students. We've finally posted some podcasts and we're going to add a lot more (as well as more videos). My favorite new feature is a new category we have called "Primary Detectives" where they look at an authentic primary source and attempt to make sense out of it.

The most profound change occurs over a cup of coffee when I can be authentic and you don't try and change me

I am reticent about writing this blog, because it will probably reek of pop psychology.  Still, it is a simple truth I've learned that applies to teaching.  The more I attempt to change someone, the less it works.  However, the more I try to know someone and love someone, the more I make a difference. What if the best way to have an impact with a student is through not trying to make an impact?

My mentor Brad the Philosopher never tried to change me.  I always felt safe to be myself.  True, he asked really hard questions that sometimes exposed insecurities.  Often, we had deep conversations that caused major paradigm shifts.  Still, there was a sense that he liked me as a person, that he enjoyed drinking Starbucks and talking politics or books or occasionally the deeply personal parts of life.  I now use many of his words, his mannerisms, his style of follow-up questions in my own teaching.  My beliefs are not a carbon copy of his, but he has shaped my thinking.  

I used to treat students like projects.  I'd set an invisible goal and almost agressively push toward it.   "I'll get that kid to write quality paragraphs.  I'll tutor him and revise his work and keep pushing him."  Pushing is a great term for what happened.  I pushed the kid away quickly and his writing grew worse.  Or I'd say, "that kid is smart but a little lazy.  I wonder how I'll make sure she does every assignment."  

Children get edgy when they are viewed as projects or quantified as data.  Intuitively, they sense when a teacher is working with them for self-glorification.  Nobody wants to be an extra bullet in a resume, a story line in a newspaper or an artifact in a portfolio.  However, when a student feels safe, accepted, even, dare I say, loved, then they are open to a dialogue and to paradigm shifts and to the recipricol relationship where a student influences a teacher as much as the teacher transforms a student.  

Photo Credit

Flickr Creative Commons

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gaylon/168693177/

I've been reading a lot of Science Teacher lately.  On the surface he and I are really different.  My guess is our religious beliefs most likely differ and I'm not crazy about science; mostly because school taught me that science is not about exploration, but about memorizing answers.  Science Teacher's not crazy about fill-in-the-blank learning and for that reason I really enjoy his blog.  He's also a hell of a writer.  

This is one of those moments when I'm conflicted about technology.  On one hand, I am growing more and more into a "local guy," with my roots in the Maryvale area.  On the other hand, I love the fact that I can read a good blog instantaneously with Google Reader.  

I'm listening to Eric Clapton Unplugged this morning. I'm in the mood for a voice that doesn't sound like a choirboy falsetto. I consider Tom Waits, but that's a little too much gravel and I'm not in the mood for the whispy voice of Sufjan Stevens. Counting Crows is always a decent choice in the "bad voice" category, but at the last minute I realize that I want to listen to "San Francisco Bay Blues." Bad voices are an acquired taste, but after awhile it's impossible for me to go back to overdubbed pop.

The first time I had a Hefeweizen, I was intrigued. I can't say that I loved the flavor. It was slow and it was different. The cloudy texture was the liquid version of a Tom Waits tune. Now it's damn near impossible for me to drink a Bud Light. It's not that I'm a beer snob, but that I like unfiltered wheat. I like to taste what I'm drinking. I like it to flow slowly.

I hated Hemmingway the first time I read his work. The same goes for James Joyce. I thought it was snobbery to read "stream of conciousness" and I thought that Hemminway was just an intellectual asshole. Both assumptions are probably true. But now I drink in a Joyce novel as slowly as a Hefeweizen and for the same reason that I love the unfiltered, ragged quality of Hemmingway.

I wonder how Hemmingway would do on the standardized writing prompt. I'll grade him 1-4 for each of the six traits:

Voice: 3
Ideas: 2
Word Choice: 2
Mechanics: 2
Sentence Fluency: 1
Organization: 3

And for James Joyce
Voice: 4
Ideas: 1
Word Choice: 3
Mechanics: 2
Sentence Fluency: 1
Organization: 1

I think that puts both of the authors in the Approaches category, which means they are the Bubble Kids eligible for tutoring. Good luck, gentleman.

And they wonder why the best of our school poets are writing their words on the restroom walls. I know, I know, poetry doesn't get you a job at Intel. Yet, even then I wonder. In a global economy, where being vanilla isn't all that special, why are we teaching students to write in an identical format? What if the answer is to be a little more like Clapton and Hemmingway and Hefeweizen? What if we need to abandon the Budweizer factory education and give teachers the chance to develop microbreweries?

For nearly five years now, my students have created an online social studies magazine called Social Voice. The title is a bit edgy, even Marxist, but it sums up the goal in simple language. I want students to express their individual and collective voice on all things social studies. At the same time, I want them to listen, to explore the silence, to ask inquisitive questions. I'm not sure where this fits in with the world of standardized testing. Call me crazy, but I'd rather teach humans than data.

In the process of creating our eZine, we began to ask whether our photographs were violating copyright. After a class discussion, students explored options of using both public domain photographs and Creative Commons licensed images. Now, when students create documentaries, websites, presentations or anything else, they are required to follow copyright rules. The following are some of the sites that students have been using.

Public Domain Pictures: I'm not crazy about this site, because it can be difficult to find the exact license for pics. Plus, they seem to be real "stock pictures" and that can make things feel too packaged. However, some students have liked this site.

Flickr Creative Commons: I love the blend of artistic styles as well as how easy it is to search and to find the exact licensing details. This is the site we use most often our our websites.

Wikimedia Commons: Many of the pictures we can't get at Flickr seem to be available on Wikimedia Commons. They seem to do a great job guaranteeing that photos aren't violating copyright.

National Archives: Being a social studies class, we often need historical photos. Within the National Archives, there are many public domain pictures that suit our purpose.

Library of Congress: Similar to National Archives, but with more pictures.

Documenting America: This project is part of the Library of Congress.

ARS Gallery: Whenever we need decent "scenery" pictures, the ARS has free public domain photographs that work really well.

Morguefile: I love the artistic, indy feel of this site. It's become one of my favorites.

I like denim. It's unpretentious. It's universal. I can be a cowboy in Montana or a migrant in Arizona or an urbanite in a trendy bistro and share the same love of the same fabric. It's casual. It's wearable. I can don the same pair of jeans multiple times, depending on the feel and the smell to determine if I should toss them in the wash.

I teach better in denim than in a shirt and tie. In college, the shirt and tie was the magical talisman. Like the podium and the title "mister" and my use of academic language, the shirt and tie spoke of a hierarchical authority. "Students respond to a shirt and a tie. It's how you gain respect." I imagined, for the first quarter, that if I broke from the corporate clothing, the class would morph into a Lord of the Flies anarchy. Children would light desks on fire and perhaps even begin sentences without capital letters (perhaps an ee cummings rebellion?).

On a casual Friday, out of sheer peer pressure, I broke down and wore a pair of jeans. It felt relaxing. It felt normal. Classroom management was actually easier, because, as strange as it seems, denim changed the way I teach. The formality did not improve behavior. Instead, it enabled me to create a faux expertise that kept me at arms distance with the students. Like the tie itself, the entire outfit kept things vertical, but blue jeans allowed me to be horizontal.

I want to be more denim when I teach. I realize that casual Friday is only every other week, but I want my approach to be denim. I'd like to be casual, approachable, understandable, rugged, able to provide help without feeling the need to be appreciated. People work hard in denim and they play in denim and they laugh in denim, because jeans are the common denominator. The district elite might tell me that I am a businessman, part of a professional learning community, but I'd rather avoid the business model and interact in denim. I'd rather be respected because of who I am than because of my title.

Photo Credit

Flickr Creative Commons

http://jtspencer.blogspot.com/2009/02/another-joel-story.html

We're walking to the park when Joel hears a dog bark.  He and Micah start barking and, in turn, the neighborhood is a loud cacophony of various dogs.  Both of them smile, delighted in the simple act of cause and effect.  

"Hey Joel, you shouldn't do that," I explain.  

"Why?" 

"It's teasing the dogs," I explain. 

"No, it's not.  I'm just saying hello.  It's the only word I know in dog. That's how dogs say hi to each other.  In Spanish they say, 'hola,' but in dog they say, 'roof.'"  

It's at this point that I realize I can't win and maybe I shouldn't.  Maybe Joel's right.  Maybe dogs barking isn't a pissing contest over territory, but a simple social gesture. And maybe I should take the cue from Joel and consider saying "hello" to people more often.  

  

I'm not the camp-counselor-see-me-for-all-your-drama style of teacher.  Often, I am the last teacher to find out why a student is walking around feeling dejected.  It's not that I am a hard-ass, but that I have a high respect for space and I am careful and perhaps too slow in asking questions to draw out a student's story.  

Despite this reality, students feel safe enough to ask me deep questions.  Occasionally, these begin a dialogue that reveals the painful story.  A child might ask, "Mr. Spencer, why is there so much violence in the world?" and as I ask questions, I'll finally hear, "My dad hits my mom and I just don't get it."  Another time, a boy tells me, "You know how you mentioned Iraq.  My brother died in Iraq.  Why do the people who make war never have to fight in it?"  This opens a flood of tears and the best I can do is listen. Often, I hear the stories in the midst of an assignment.  Free verse poetry and personal narratives become a safe way for a child to cry for help.  

It's in these moments that I wish I could offer something more.  Though it is an offensive belief, I genuinely believe that I can offer something.  I can offer the chance to know Jesus Christ.  I always stop short, though.  Even when a kid will ask me, "What do you believe happens when you die?" or "Why would you never cheat on your wife?"  I am careful to answer my questions vaguely.  For example, I'll say, "I believe I'm going to heaven," but when a child asks, "why's that?" I redirect the conversation. I want to respect each child's right to a belief and respect each family's religious background.  Sometimes, though, I wonder if I should be a little more open in my dialogue.

So, it led me to this question: To what extent should a teacher share their religious views with students?  

Last Week: What works best for 7-8 graders?

Junior High	4 (30%)
Middle School	6 (46%)
K-8	3 (23%)
It makes no difference	0 (0%)

Change your vote

Votes so far: 13 
Hours left to vote: 10 

I've been coaching track now for about a week.  I forgot how much I love this sport.  I love the diversity of the players.  We've got skinny, lanky distance runners mixed with the "super-athletes" who dominate the sprints and a few chubby kids who seem to excel in shot put.  More than that, I love the fact that we already feel like a team.  It's such an individual sport, but as we played "ghetto ultimate frisbee" (using a Nerf ball instead), there was a sense that we were a cohesive whole.  When I was in middle school, the cliques were cemented in, but students at my school are a little more fluid in their ability to move around.  Is it a difference between low and high socioeconomic levels?  Or is it part of the "2.0" generation that networks in webs?  Either way, it felt like the rigid hierarchy ceased when we played a game together.  

Most metaphors go unspoken, aside from the casual conversation of idealists.  True, the business world will employ metaphor, but only as a last resort, when analytical prose is too effecient.  Metaphor is usually left for the dreamers, the poets, the writers and the artists.  It's easy to assume that metaphor belongs in a trendy bistro where stoned bohemians sort through existential quandries by comparing life to a tortilla.  

At school, the metaphors are obvious.  We are a factory.  Occasionally, we are a corporation.  We're never a garden, that's for sure.  On a rare occasion, we might be tourists on a journey.  Usually, though, we're in an industrial corporation.  The metaphor silently shapes the language, which then shapes the meaning that eventually creates the climate and the culture.  I once believed that the culture created the language, but I'm beginning to see that, though reciprocal, it begins with the language.  

At the staff meeting yesterday, we heard about "various tools" that teachers could use.  Common words included, "structure," "effecient," "on the same page," "professional," "measurable," and anything else that created the semantic environment reminding me of the unspoken factory metaphor.  Every word had mechanical, scientific and corporate overtones.  No one used words like "growth," "human," "wisdom" or "love." 

In thinking through a rethink of the Digital Age, I fear that schools will fail philosophically for two reasons.  First, they will continue to apply new ideas to the unspoken factory model.  In an effort to communicate to the current context, they will slip back into the same vocabulary of the factory system.  Second, I imagine they might create a newer, more technocratic model with language such as, "construct," "connect," "tech-integrated," "New Economy," and "digital."  In the process, they will miss looking back before the factory metaphors and ask, "What metaphor we lose when we turned learning into a factory?"   

Photo Credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2179041336/

Flickr Creative Commons

Our staff lounge can be really rough when it comes to gossip, rumors and outright slander. I admit that I occasionally engage in the backstabbing; and that's exactly what it is, a stab, a bloody knife used for groups to gain power. I share stories about people rather than going to someone and confronting them in person. I know, I know. It's cowardly. It's cruel. I could get defensive here and point out that it's rare, but that doesn't change the fact that it's horrible.

What it's not is political. The power-hungry nature, the mob mentality, the tribalism are not part of a political machinery. Instead, it's personal, deeply personal. When staff call it politics, they minimize the pain. They tell someone to get thicker skin, but it's hard to create thick enough skin to withstand a backstab.

From my experience, "politics" often come from a few sources. First, people want power and will use people to gain it or maintain it. Though this can be dark, it is often part of a more noble desire to be known and to be respected. Second, people are bored and enjoy the melodrama attached to the "political" game. I think people underestimate the pull of boredom. A truly bored person has nothing to lose. Finally, a part of politics is often deep relational conflict due to a clash in values and beliefs. I am most "political" when someone tells me to standardize my job, because it breaks with my core beliefs about learning.

I realize this post might seem dark. It's not that I've been hurt by gossip lately, but I'm noticing the bullying and gossip going on between students and it strikes me how similar this is sounding to the staff lounge conversations I heard this morning.

Photo Credit
Flickr Creative Commons
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ari/2238969281/

I'm starting a new unit on the 1970's-2000's.  It's odd to think of it as a forty year time span.  I'm nearly thirty (which is triple X in Roman Numerals).  The state standards are real banal for this unit.  Each one reads, "Describe the events of the presidency of __________" and there is a standard for each president.  At first, I chose the easy route.  I created lessons  involving presidential report cards.  I imagined that, with enough flair, I could relate each subject to the current presidency.  

At the last minute, I changed my mind.  Instead, I'm teaching the topic of globalization.  To me, it's the only way to make sense out of the fall of communism, the various international conflicts, the technology developments, etc.  We're going to read The World Is Flat and discuss the implications of a flat world from the political, geographic, technological, economic, social and cultural aspects.  I want to create some sort of "flat world" problem-based learning (perhaps a company meeting where they must decide if they want to stay local or go global? Or maybe a town hall where they must choose whether a Wal-Mart will be beneficial?) as the culmination of the unit.  

This could be either really cool or really lame.  I rarely say this, but I'm wondering if this will turn out to be a little too challenging for students.  

When I explain to my seventh hour that our class would change from "math intervention" (attempting to make math concepts practical to life) to "social voice writing" the students groan.  I have the low group, the Falls Far Below and Approaches.  I understand.  It's like asking me to join woodshop or automotive repair.  

I begin with the question, "Why do so many people hate writing?"  In this case, the "so many people" are the students providing the answers.  Out of the group brainstorming session, we create a whole-class web.  Students generally agree that, while self-efficacy is a major aspect and low-skill often contributes, both are often a guise for the lower motivation.  When I ask students about the relationship between each concept, we explore the reciprocity between skill level, self-efficacy and motivation.  

Finally a student explains, "If I can't do something, I'm going to get bored.  If I don't believe I can do it, I won't try.  If I find it boring, I won't try and I won't be good at it.  So, why not make it fun?" 

This leads to a great discussion about whether "fun" and "boring" are really antonyms.  I askwhy someone would get bored of a roller-coaster after the nineteenth time riding it and why I used to love a song on the radio, but now I'm bored with it.  Perhaps "too easy" and "uninteresting" might be more accurate antonymns.  The discussion is short, a mere ten minutes before students grow restless.  

"What if there are no true synonymns and antonymns?" Ah, a postmodern in a bastion of objectivity.  "What if each word doesn't get it's meaning from being by itself, but by being shades of gray between other words.  The way I see it, interesting could maybe be a little boring after awhile."  The class looks confused, but I feel like I understand her.  

I ask the students how many find the activity fun.  One child raises his hand.  I ask how many find it boring, a brave soul raises her hand.  I toss out other words like "challenging" and "different" and "unusual" and "tense."  

"See, this is why we write.  It's not because it's fun.  It's because we all feel a need to connect, to communicate, to put our thoughts into words and to create our thoughts with our words.  I'll try not to make it boring, but I can't promise it will be fun.  See, I want you to see that we write because it's absolutely crucial to life.  It's how we make sense out of our experience."  

A few students wander off mentally and I can't tell if it's deep pondering or if I sound as crazy to them as the postmodern girl with the lecture of words and the shades of gray.  And I guess that's the beauty of it.  When I don't have to try to be fun, when I don't have to entertain, beauty and meaning and truth can often break through in unexpected ways.   

I'm sitting on the couch, huddled next to my two sons.  Feeling tired and overwhelmed I solicit the help of my virtual nanny, who provides both boys with a story about David and Goliath in the format of singing vegetables.  It strikes me that I am closer physically, perhaps more intimately, with the computer sitting on my lap.  Shouldn't it be Joel or Micah instead? 

I initially intended Techno-Tuesday to be a dialogue about the central themes of technology in education or, better yet, to provide a few token tutorials for practical help.  Instead, I find myself attempting to make sense out of my cyber-identity.  The Luddite in me wants to flip off the DVD player, bust out a children's book and set down my laptop.  The technocrat feels a need, a compulsion (or is it an addiction?) to engage in the fantasy world of internet interaction.  

I shut off the singing vegetables.  Micah cries.  Is it normal for a two year old to grow attached to the dancing flickers of light and the streaming audio?  For my part, I miss the flickering lights of the streaming ones and zeroes of my PC (I'm not trendy or rich enough to have a Mac).  When I ask Joel what he wants to read, he pulls out the Manny the Monkey book I painted for him this Christmas.  The house is filled with a deafening white noise, but as I begin the story, it feels alive and earthy.  The boys laugh when I attempt the strange accents.  

On some level, I blog because I want to feel less lonely.  I want to read a comment and to "hear" a voice and to know that I'm not alone in the crazy world of education. Teaching is a solitary vocation.  We're all so drained that no one can offer anything in the staff lounge aside from a faux mask of competance.  Tonight my mask feels too tight and for awhile I take it off, read a book and be myself.  As I attempt to blog about this, I'm conflicted.   I'm not sure how much of myself is here and how much of it is another mask created for an online audience. 

I'm sitting here watching a photography show on the Create network.  A guy named Art Wolfe travels to the a remote tribe in West Africa and takes snapshots of a sacred dance.  In a whispering tone, he explains the belief system of animism.  A few times, he offers judgemental phrases, "How bizarre that is," but usually his role is the educator, a khaki-clad professor in West Africa.  

I'm bothered by the scene.  In the midst of something sacred, he is capturing it, imprisoning religion into the lense of his Cannon.  It's a techonlogy-driven tool with a Western, modernist filter. The focus is always individual, always sharp, always colorful.  Rather than engaging with the people and experiencing the commonality of the universal human experience, he fits each person into distinctly American categories.  

The State Department is my version of the Cannon Camera.  Here, the expert walks into my room, makes descriptive statements based upon snap judgements, intrudes into the sacred with a tone of authority and creates a quiet, hushed description in the form of a formal report.  He speaks in edu-speak, a language that is foreign to both myself and the students and within a few minutes he declares himself the experts on students he has never met.  

Poor man, he believes that gathering data and capturing pictures is the same as knowing someone.  He has confused saber with conocer. And, rather than finding some common theme, some universal aspect to all education, he seperates students into categories of and labels until the students are mere images framed by an artificial, modernist, technology-driven camera.   

While running my marathon yesterday, I noticed only a small handful of runners without plugs in their ears.  Surrounded by the beauty of the Superstitution Mountains, they chose to fill their ears with a pre-programmed stream of personalized songs.  Instead of feeling a sense of communion with fellow athletes, they isolated into their own mental world.  

I was not entirely innocent.  The moments of true silence were rare.  Instead, my mental iPod skipped from song to song depending on the moment.  Moments before the race, surrounded by the canyon walls, as I attempted to stretch my icy hands, all I could hear was "Long Decemeber" by Counting Crows. At the beginning, filled with excitement, it was The Postal Service's "Brand New Colony" and Sufjan Steven's "Chicago" (the faster live version).  During a long hard stretch, Fleetwood Mac serenaded me with "You Can Go Your Own Way."  

I know it might be hard to believe, but the songs in my head were clear, ultra-clear as if I were listening to them in person.  Perhaps it was delerium.  I ran my marathon sick (I vomited twice) and I felt really weak.  It's more than that, though.  I genuinely believe my mind hears music better because it is not reliant upon a portable device.  It makes me understand why my grandpa can remember dates so well.  He never uses iCalendar or Google Calendar.  And my grandmother, despite her age, can still remember people's addresses and phone numbers.  

I used to believe that technology was something predictable.  Now I see it as a marriage.  I realize this metaphors a bit strange, but bear with me. We enter into a binding, albeit unspoken, social contract between man and machine.  Machine promises effeciency, ease of access and effeciency and we promise basic upkeep.  Machine alters humanity as we alter the machine. It's why I could never completely escape my online identity forged by the forces of Facebook and Blogger. Sometimes the relationship is worth it.  Other times, we realize when it's too late to take back the piece of plastic and the headphones for the mental iPod. 

Our school is changing to a Pre-K through 8th Grade next year. Currently we are a "middle school" that functions more as a junior high. So, for this week's survey, I am curious which model works best for seventh and eighth graders:

1. Junior High - typically very large, with a great deal of student choice. Students are not in teams, but rather they can choose different "tracks" or different types of styles in a subject (for example, practical math, business math, college prep math, etc.)
2. Middle School - usually a little smaller and sometimes encompassing 5-8th grades, the middle school concept is based upon teams that share the same group of students. Thus, the "J Team" might have one group of students for all core content areas while the "K team" would have a different group. Also, they would share prep periods.
3. K-8: Here, there are no teams, because there might only be four rotations of math, science, social studies and language arts.

Last Week's Results:
What role should standardized tests have in standardized education? (You can select multiple answers)

Teacher Evaluation: 4 (26%)
Student Evaluation: 5 (33%)
School Evaluation: 3 (20%)
Diagnostic Measure: 13 (86%)
None of the Above: 2 (13%)

After completing my marathon, I thought I would go Q&A style by interviewing myself.  

John: What was your time?

Spencer: I ran it in five hours and twenty minutes. 

John: Is that what you were aiming for?

Spencer: I had no target time, so I'm not really disappointed.  There were a few things that caused me to run slower.  First, the hills at Lost Dutchman are brutal.  Second, I ran too fast in the beginning, so I was lagging later.  Finally, I've been real sick to my stomach since Thursday night.  I vomited twice today and I had di . . .

John: I get the point.  Let's move on.  What was the best part of the marathon?

Spencer: Definitely seeing Christy and the boys.  They had these hand-painted signs and they cheered me on.  I seriously felt like quitting after mile ten and I was almost in tears, but Joel said, "You can do it!" and that made all the difference.  

John: Sounds like an amazing wife. 

Spencer: Yep, she is.  And she's hot, too. 

John: Were there any strange incidents?

Spencer: I had some interesting conversations with two women who I think were a couple, but might have just been good friends.  They asked me my sons' names and then one of them started talking about why she loved the book of Micah.  Not exactly the location that I would assume for a spiritual conversation.  

John: Any other highlights?

Spencer: Running in the desert was amazing.  Seeing the finish line was great.  Not only were Christy and the boys there, but our friend Julia cheered me on as well.  There was one mentally handicapped kid who was handing out water and, maybe because I am so emotional, it nearly moved me to tears.  It's cool to see someone with Down Syndrome get a chance to serve, instead of just be served.  I know it's strange, but at mile twenty-four, seeing that was like fuel to keep going. 

John: Which running cartoon character do you relate the most to?

Spencer: That's a ridiculous question. It's glib and it's poorly constructed.  I guess I'd have to go with the Roadrunner. 

John: Why not Speedy Gonzalez? Is it an issue of latent racism?

Spencer: No, it's just that I'm a distance runner, that's all.  

John: Yeah, but you prefer to run on dirt and so does Speedy Gonzalez.  Why not him?

Spencer: Can we move on?

John: Sure, the best way to fight racism is to not acknowledge it, right? Okay, so how are you feeling now that it's over?

Spencer: I'm relieved.  I'm surprisingly not in much pain.  I'm not even that tired. Looking back, I feel like the biggest accomplishment was the journey.  I never would have thought that I'd lose sixty pounds and be in good shape.    

Joel: Spiderman is a good man and so is Barack Obama.  He's our president.  Can you say President Barack Obama, Micah?

Micah: Present Bock Bama

Joel: No, not a present.  President.  Say it again, Micah. 

Micah: Why?

Joel: He's our president. He's a good guy. 

Micah: Why?

Joel: He wants to stop the war.  But John McCain is a good guy.  He doesn't want to take our money.  

Micah: Why?

Joel: He wants us to buy McDonalds.  

Micah: Okay

I'm sitting in the family room listening to this entire conversation.  It's crazy to me what they've internalized from the outside and how, albeit simplistic, they sort-of get the gist of the two candidates.  

I'm not crazy about the saccharine heart day, with the incessant use of pink, the gawdy, primped flowers, the carnival-style, over-stuffed animals and the bouncing helium balloons. It's not the tacky side that bothers me, though. It's something more visceral, shaped by some of my earliest childhood memories.

When I was really young, it was a first grade pissing contest. We would spend a day creating a useless mailbox (I'm sure the teacher was excited about it) and then pass out small cards with the little antacid hearts (to use Jim Gaffigan's phrase). Some teachers permitted the Social Darwin experiment, leading to a visual demonstration of the school social hierarchy. Others implemented rules about "one card per child," but inevitably students subverted the system by giving the best cartoon characters to the prettiest people. Kids can be cruel.

In high school, it was worse. I'd see a girl with a large bouquet and wonder, "What will she have to trade for that?" Yeah, I could be brutal, too. I would see the homely looking girl with a dejected expression or I'd see the boys wander around wishing they had a girlfriend walking around with an overpriced teddy bear.

Students aren't wearing uniforms today. For me this is a refreshing change from the usual drab blue and white, but I am bothered by our staff's motive in choosing a non-uniform day. Students can wear red today if they donate a dollar to help raise money for the American Heart Association. Similarly, students can help raise money for a local charity through paying to have a candy-gram sent to their classroom.

It's not that I don't believe in service. Instead, it's that I don't believe in the implicit message about community service. When we toss in an extrinsic reward, students learn that community service should not be a sacrifice, but rather an unspoken social contract of candy for money. I realize that this model has its place in social institutions. Churches have long held bakesales and charities have created fun runs. Yet, I am bothered by the unspoken philosophy that service is something that should require a reward.

For this reason, I am putting together a list of community service philosophies:

• Intrinsic Reward - People serve because it makes them feel good inside. They love the idea that serving the community feels meaningful and challenging. Often, there is a tinge of moralism to this philosophical concept.
  
• Extrinsic Reward - People serve because they get candy or a non-uniform day or praise and affirmation for their work. Other times it's the sense of power and authority connected with service.
  
• Duty - This is the idea that there is a big need and something must be done. Often, there is is sense of urgency that pulls people to serve. They see something bad and they want to make a difference. Those who serve out of duty realize that it might not be enjoyable, but it is necessary.
  
• Love - This is the idea that you see a need and out of compassion (not simply pity) you serve your community. At a first glance, this seems to be the most enjoyable. Those who serve out of love will take the role of a servant and will see a need and want to serve (as opposed to sheer duty) but will also understand that it might be painful and difficult.
  

Someone from Big Brother pulled me aside today to inform me that computers in a classroom can be a bad idea. "How often do they type their work?" she asked. I explained that, aside from a weekly handwritten assignment, they type everything they write.

"You do realize that students will be tested in paper and pencil?" she asked.

"No, I thought, in the midst of massive budget shortcuts, that they hand-delivered laptops to each child." Here's your sign.

"Seriously. You're having students type on a daily basis, but they're tested with a paper and pencil. How will they pass the test if they can't write?"

I mentioned the transfer of the skills, the increase in motivation, the instant feedback of spell check (which does not make students "reliant." It's not as if they were double-checking each incorrect word with a dictionary in the first place.) I suggested that textual recognition might help the transition from reading to typing.

Later, as I was talking with a group of teachers, a woman suggested that text messages might end up being a gift to teachers. "I know it means we have to teach them to write different than they text. But we wouldn't tell students to avoid writing poetry because it's not prose. The more they text, the more they are using English in the writtten form. I think it could be a good thing."

It made me think about a concept. I wonder if the instant access to text is a positive or a negative. I wonder if students are more careful when they handwrite, because words aren't "cheap." In other words, they must re-write drafts and there is no backspace button. However, typing is an ultra-convenient medium. Similarly, texts are cheap and effecient and simple. I wonder if one is more careful and therefore writes with a higher quality when it's paper (or better yet papyrus parchments) because of the scarcity. Perhaps the answer isn't always "more writing," or even "more reading."

I admit that I could easily be completely wrong about this. I'm just wondering if the convenience and effeciency of a medium might work against quality communication.

This is a picture of our in-class mural before it was finished.

I admit that this is a more humble suggestion in comparison to others.  At our school, students litter constantly.  People often make an excuse, blaming a "ghetto mentality."  However, I have been to many of the student's homes and the house is pristine.  It might be small and it might have decorations bought at the Swap-Meet and the Dollar Store, but there is a sense of pride in the home.  The main motive is the sense of ownership. . . . Which is exactly what is missing from my school. 

I know this sounds shallow, but what if schools looked less like prisons and more like resorts or homes or anything more human than a mind factory?  What if students participated in creating a new environment for learning?  What if they could help raise money for materials, help in the creative design, work in teams developing new work areas, negotiated with parents and staff members and communicated the changes to the community?  

I imagine my school differently.  Here, the students would design some gardens, both quiet zones where they could read and social gardens where they could hang out.  Students would work on painting murals after school, planting more trees and perhaps even pushing toward some "green" rennovations that might save energy and, therefore, money.  They could redesign the library layout to be less stale and more student-friendly and the cafeteria would be less of a dirty-brown pit and more of a common space to eat.  

I know that this sounds idealistic, but the changes are relatively small.  I would request students to be part of the upkeep.   In other words, allow students to volunteer for graffiti removal, garden upkeep, mural painting, etc.  Let students navigate the difficulties of managing some of these projects and guide them only when necessary.  

I realize that this probably seems too cosmetic.  However, people respond differently to certain environments.  Tagging is rare at Disneyland becuase it is pristine (too pristine in my opinion).  Students keep my classroom clean and free of graffiti, because they like our in-class mural and the shades of gray I painted the rest of the room.  It changes the ethos of a room, resulting in a calming effect. What if the entire school could maintain that atmosphere?  My guess is that there would be fewer acts of vandalism and violence and that eventually it might even lead to higher motivation and therefore higher levels of learning.  

Blame it on technology.  Perhaps it was mass media.  What, with MTV and ESPN and a twenty-four seven stream of "late-breaking news," the notion of region has been slowly fading.  Maybe it's the internet.  All the bloggers out there desseminating information into a fragmented digital universe.  Or blame it on multinational corporations and Wal-Mart. Yeah, I'll choose Wal-Mart.  They're always an easy target.  

Honestly, I don't know where we lost our sense of region.  Perhaps it was the birth of mass media or the freeway system or multinational corporations growing more effecient.  Maybe it was the mobility and transcience of an instant culture.  Perhaps it's more recent.  It's hard to deny that the internet is the great eraser of geography.  

It's become cliche to lament the loss of community.  A simple glimpse at a Friends re-run reminds me that we began to thirst for it when we felt lost in the nineties. The Gen-X latchkey kids woke up one evening as lost adults and began posing postmodern questions in solitude.  Is it any wonder that they wanted so badly to connect?  But community became a buzzword, a title for churches and for developers with a "master plan," which meant a gated ghetto of wealth, where people could have tiny yards, big walls and access to a pool.  

I get the sense that my generation wants community, but we also want to recover the sense of region that is so badly missing from our lives.  We yearn for the traditions of the past.  I have a friend who is moving back to Michigan, knowing that there won't be any jobs.  He'd rather be poor and spend his winters shovelling snow if it means he can experiene the "beauty of the lakes."  I keep meeting more people who have a sense of pride in Arizona, a desire to hike the land and to embrace the minimilist beauty of the dessert.  A teacher friend of mine wants to hear music, any music, that has an Arizona sound and experience the often forgotten art scene of downtown Phoenix. 

In the past, I hated the idea of a "southwest region."  It seemed touristy and conjured up images of Kachina dolls and t-shirts with wolves and a decorating style that required a high dose of teal and burnt sienna.  Now, however, I yearn for something regional - a run through the dessert, a southwestern Mexican food joint, maybe even a visit to the all-too-pastiche Chino Bandito.  I want something distinctly regional.  

My students are tapping away on Ubuntu, which is a Linux operating system. It's been easy for us to customize and rarely has viruses. They are working seamlessly between the Google Docs and Open Office, where they combine spreadsheets, create a presentation and post it all on a blog.

As I scan the classroom, I imagine how much this could cost if we were paying licensing fees. It's not that we're using pirated software (it's so tempting to offer a scurvy joke here) but that every computer is running only open source or freeware programs. (Open source means the source code is available to all people while freeware often has closed code but is also entirely free) Whether students edit videos, create podcasts, design websites, edit photographs, type, use concept maps, or do pretty much any computer-related task, they use only freeware or open source programs.

The following is a list of benefits with open source / freeware:

• I can give students the link and they can download the programs for free at home
• I never have to worry about "trial periods" or asking my department for money
• It's easy to ditch a program that fails, because I haven't invested money in it
  
• Usually programs are updated more often, because they aren't worried about keeping the code secure
• Many open source programs have Mac, PC and Linux versions
• I don't have tech support, but there are usually phenomenal tutorials as well as online forums that answer my questions

If you would like to join a discussion about Open Source and Freeware, check out the forum discussion on the Learning with IMPACT Social Network

I've tried to use Google Calendar for my daily life, but it just doesn't work well for my to do list.  Don't get me wrong, it's great for sending reminders about meetings (it e-mails my gmail acount), but it is inflexible and annoying when I have a fat list of things to do and nine of them fall within my prep period.  For the longest time, I started to believe that my only real choice was the trusty clipboard.  .  . until now. 

For about a week, I've been using Google Tasks.  It's part of g-mail, so it flows naturally.  I can create multiple to-do lists and manage them on a regular basis. There still isn't a "daily list" feature, but I'm sure that will exist soon.  It's easy to simply click on a task when I'm done or to write a detail within the task.  I realize it's not the fanciest technology.  I'm sure that there are task-managing systems that work really well.  However, I love this for the simplicity of it.  It's just like paper, except it doesn't get sweaty in my pocket and, unlike the clipboard, it's not left awkwardly in the staff restroom.  

1. Bubble Wrap: Does it ever become uninteresting? I thought I would outgrow it, but I still think bubble wrap is the ultimate diversion. In fact, I think my school should supply bubble wrap at professional development meetings.

2. Frosting: I'm not a huge fan of cake (aside from my wife's amazing rum cake), but I endure it only for the frosting. If it were socially acceptable and calorie-free, I would eat an entire tub of it in one sitting.

3. The Postal Service: It's Death Cab for Cutie meets Super Mario Bros. What's not to love?

4. The Unvarnished New Testament: I realize that it's probably not as accurate as a few of the other translations, but it's cool to get a version of Greek that is closer to the language than to the Latin influences. It's fun, for example, to remember that "disciple" also means "student."

5. Digital Television: Four PBS stations? Can it get any better? Seriously, I'm not being sarcstic here. I will forever be lost in PBS World while Joel begs me to play baseball with him.

A few times a year, I lose it. I yell. No, I scream at my class. Sometimes, it's the build-up from failing to address conflict. It's a combination of little things that I feel I shouldn't have to deal with anymore. After all, I convince myself, I have good classroom management. So, why were three girls talking during bell work? Why did I see side conversations when I was talking? What was with the comment saturated with an apathetic attitude? Why did two groups completely fail to do a project? Other times, it's the constant barrage of meetings, paperwork and the shame-fest about how awful our school is when our test scores don't increase by a high enough ratio.

I have a really long fuse, but the explosion is ugly. About two weeks ago, I yelled at my third hour. I paced and screamed. My face turned red. A kid laughed nervously and it set me off even worse. It's not an issue of raising my voice. I'll increase my volume deliberately. Instead, this is the issue of an explosive temper that I've had since I was a child.

I could easily rationalize it by saying, "It's really changed over the years. I don't get violent. I don't yell at my family. It's become incredibly rare in the classroom." Instead, I have to admit that my temper, no matter how rare, is still ugly and that it hurts people. Like any other exploding bomb, the victims are often innocent. I can't blow up at laziness and bureaucracy.

So, I came back and apologized. I've been pulling shrapnel out of the students for the last few weeks. It's made me a little timid and hopefully a little humble. It's been a healthy process of mending wounds. I won't pretend that it's all "back to normal" but there is a sense in which they are quick to forgive. It's not that my students are made of Kevlar. It's just that so many of them live within the walls of constant anger that they have grown used to the war zone. If anything, it's been hard for me to realize that my yelling at the class was not shocking to students already wounded with shrapnel.

At one time, I railed against standardized tests.  Viewing it as a cancer destroying education, I watched it destroy meaningful learning.  I hated the notion of teaching to the test instead of teaching to the student.  I loathed the constant use of the words "science" and "data," especially in an age of paradox and scientific uncertainty.  I lobbed bricks at the Cathedral of Data, which turned learning into a quantifiable number and students into an easy label.  With these firm convictions, I would present my passionate diatribes in staff meetings and in e-mails.  I was a heretic to the cult of standardization and I relished in my rebel status.  

It was easy to hate standardized tests.  After all, the cultural bias was damaging.  The constant test prep meant students were not thinking critically.  In the Digital Age, where higher-level thinking and innovation are the future career skills, it seemed as relevant as training students to use slide rules or write in shorthand. Besides, standardized testing failed the scrutiny of constructivism, multiple intelliegences and pretty much all research on brain theory.  If it was "science" it was about as scientific as phrenology.  And last time I checked, school counselors weren't asked to analyze the bumps on students' heads because it was a "back-to-basics" approach. 

Since then, I have grown more moderate.  I now see standardized tests as being an incomplete, albeit effecient, diagnostic tool to measure skills.  AIMS Web helps me figure out a child's reading fluency.  Basic comprehension questions let me know if a child has a general undrestanding.  I can use the data to help with some targetted tutoring.  I still disagree with testing as an evaluative measure and I don't believe it should be the primary method of assessment.  Instead, I prefer rubrics, portfolios, project evaluations, reflections and one-on-one conferencing.   

So, this week's survey question is:

What role should standardized tests have in a child's education?

Last Week's Results:

Make it mandatory	2 (22%)
Make it voluntary, but offer credit	3 (33%)
Make it voluntary, but don't offer credit	4 (44%)
Don't offer community service	0 (0%)

It seems so counterintuitive that Saturday driving is worse than weekday driving. However, every time I venture out on the road on Saturdays, I end up anxious and annoyed. So, I'll take that pent up emotion and, instead of applying it to road rage, I'll transfer it into a quasi-theoretical blog post about Saturday drivers. 

My theory is that there are two groups of Saturday drivers that often collide in an unspoken battle of social norms. At the risk of sounding glib, I'll call the first group the Fast and the Furious and the second group the Dazed and Delirious. 

The first group compromises people who are busy and angry on a Saturday morning. This would be the blue-collar commercial truck guy (upset that the rest of the world is playing while he works on a Saturday), the fast-paced high school drivers, the shopaholics on a tight schedule and the parents (like me) who are attempting to run errands and be back by nap time. 

The second group would be the elderly who normally own the road from 9-12 on a weekday, the family going for a relaxing stroll, the test-drivers who don't want to screw up a car from the dealership, the late risers who partied the night before, the home improvement guys who are hauling heavy loads from Home Depot, the U-Haul drivers (I'm still surprised it doesn't require a commercial license) and, while I drive through Maryvale, the vast assortment of ice cream trucks. 

I realize that this is all a bunch of stereotypes, but it provides just enough theory for me to realize there is some type of rational explanation for why I hate driving on late Saturday mornings.

There is more Macbeth in me than I would like to admit.  I don't mean that in the raw, unadulterated thirst for power.  Instead, I have a steady ambition that fuels me.  It's part of what makes me a dreamer and it fuels my passion.  It's also what makes me perpetually dissapointed. I hit a constant cycle of hope, dissapointment, resolution.  I'm sure you could graph it out like a wave. 

I desire for my students to read and fall in love with the classics, to ask painfully hard personal questions in introspection, to delve into deep philosophical dialgoue, to go out and serve the community, to participate in creative projects, to learn the basic mechanics of reading and writing and then move from mechanics into the art of language, to question their world critically, to ponder in silence and to debate in public, to write poetry and to appreciate what is already written, to pick apart an author's ideas while still being tolerant of those who think differently.  I want to do all of this on fifty-five minutes a day.  

It's not that I think my desire is bad.  All of the aforementioned pursuits seem noble enough.  It's not even an issue of students feeling "pressured."  My class is hard, but I'm not exactly a task-master.  Instead, the issue is with the ambition and the constant dreaming and working hard and the sense of having to live up to some imaginary standard so that I can feel that I am doing well.  

I had one class period today where two girls were disrespectful, one group failed to make progress on a project and the class seemed generally apathetic.  The result is that I feel crushed.  I feel like a failure.  On a good day, I can remember that this is a vocation and that being faithful is all that matters.  But today I have a lingering dissapointment that I can't completely shake off.