Hey Mr. Politician-Man-Motivational-Speaker-Guru-Expert-on-Education

When you tell my students there is something beyond this neighborhood, something better, filled with white picket fences and walls that have no graffiti, you are not being inspirational.  When you tell my students that with a little hard work and gumption and just the right test scores they can get a free ticket to college and earn themselves a Lexus and a two car garage instead of a car port, you aren't selling them anything they need.  

Don't get me wrong.  College is great.  I want my students to pursue a higher education, but not so that they can get a gas-guzzling hunk of metal, but so that they can think better about life.  I want them to get a career that is measured not by the number of digits attached to the dollar sign, but by how much it fits their interests and identity and sense of meaning.  

You are right that there is life outside of this barrio.  But there is life inside here as well.  You should visit it some time.  Beyond the police helicopters and the painted walls, there are quinceneras and weddings and funerals.  There are pick-up games at the park and the smell of carne asada wafting through the air.  There are neighbors loading up pick-up trucks, because around here you can't pay someone to move - the currency is community and there is less of a tendency to confuse belongings with belonging.  

So, Mr. Politician-Man-Motivational-Speaker-Guru-Expert-on-Education, you live behind walls, too.  We all have our own gated communities.  You can come here to give a speech, but maybe next year you can come back to listen.

no offense to Michelangelo, but he got it wrong . . . or I'm hoping he got it wrong

This began as a comment I left on a friend's blog post. He writes a blog about faith and he writes it without using too much of the jargon but also without an uppity, snobby "I'm emergent and I get it because I live in the city" mentality. His words are humble and simple, not because he is simple-minded, but because he knows what matters.

I started to think about being a parent and how it changed my perception of God. Sometimes when things feel overwhelming, I turn to lists.  I still lack the words to articulate it well.  So, here are a few lessons from my own children.  Perhaps this is a little too Hallmark of me and if it is, I apologize.  This is more of a note to myself so that, when they get older, I can still remember these lessons

1. Get to know your immediate neighbors, not as a metaphor, but as flesh-and-blood people who live around you. Eat together. Talk together. Tease one another.
2. Be honest about how your are feeling. My sons will whack the crap out of each other in honesty and then make up quickly in honesty. I think there is some wisdom in there.
3. Admit that you don’t have it all figured out, not so that you look like a trendy hipster who can speak eloquently about the postmodern quandary. Instead, admit ignorance because it is the beginning of wisdom.
4. Gaze at the moon, check out the stars, and be thankful. Awhile back, I was walking with Micah and he stopped me and said, “Isn’t the moon pretty?” When I said yes, he said, “thank you God for pretty moons.” Another day, Joel said, "The moon is out in the day.  God must be joking with us."
5. Even in the complexity of life don't forget that there is real good and real evil and it's okay to call it for what it is.
6. Speak openly about diversity.  It's there.  It's important.  It's something to be celebrated.  Someone once said that kids are not color-blind, but color-kind.
7. The power of the Bible is in the story, in the narrative, in the God who does not feel the need to market himself or distill who he is into a list of bulleted points.  Enjoy the allegory and the metaphor and the plot and the characters.  It doesn't make it less true, but more true. My sons are fascinated by the power of story.
8. Don't forget that God exists in the sensate, tangible, earthy reality.  He is not some distant being in the far-off dimension.  He's here.  My kids don't pretend to understand it, but they understand that God is connected intricately in the daily life that we experience.  So, they feel no shame in randomly praying.
9. With this sense that God is always there, they have a greater sense of grace.  Though they might not understand atonement and sanctification and justification and all other "ifications" they know that grace is why the garden produces lettuce and grace is why our bodies are able to dance.  They get it, because they are content.
10. It's okay to depend on others.  Self-reliance isn't a virtue. Yes, give to others.  True, sacrifice is important.  But you need people, John, because that is part of what it means to live relationally.

Hey, check out my book Teaching Unmasked   I'm selling it at-cost or you can download it for free as a PDF.

Hey, check out my book Teaching Unmasked   I'm selling it at-cost or you can download it for free as a PDF.

I'm not a fan of word morphology and "blook" is among the worst.  Still, I'm mentioning this because I am turning this blog into a book.  In the book format, expect to see some real departures from the blog (which I will use more as source material rather than a script, per se).  I hope to incorporate the following into the book:

1. More of a true story arc.  Currently the blog goes all over the place with a very vague story.  I want to tell the story of tech integration using a more organic, narrative method.  
2. More events.  Right now it's mostly dialog. I'd like to add some action. Not necessarily explosions, but at least a sense that something is happening.  
3. More of the classroom.  I'd like to tell more stories connected to the classroom and how students engage with the learning tools.  

Overall, I think a few themes have emerged and I'd like to express these themes in a narrative:

1. Tech-integration does not exist in a social, cultural or political vacuum.  It is a deeply social, deeply human endeavor. 
2. Tech-integration is both positive and negative.  The myth is that we can always predict ahead of time the costs.  Technocrats are better scientists than they are prophets. 
3. Students and teachers need to be part geek and part guru in how they approach technology

I'm not sure if this will be self-published or published by a company.  I doubt that there is a huge market for fictional stories about nineteenth century teachers using technology.  However, I also think it's a little quirky and different and that's what makes it work. 

I'll still do some posts here. This place will continue to be where I go to to test out ideas.   

The class is sleepy and restless on a Monday morning, but apparently they feel contemplative when I ask, as part of our financial planning unit, "what do you own?" Students create a brainstorm of game systems and clothing and cell phones.  One student tells me, "I don't own anything.  It belongs to my parents.  Otherwise, when they take it away, it would be theft."

Another student tells him, "Maybe nobody owns anything.  Maybe we just say we own it because it justifies not having to share."

A few students struggle to figure out what is too general or too specific.  "Is jewelry separate from clothing?"  He wants definitive answers and gives an overdramatic sigh when I shrug my shoulders and say, "Write what you think is best."

I glance at a student's list and it reads, "myself, my voice, my education, my body, my mind, my online self."

I ask her about the online self and whether it's really true given the terms and service agreements.  She says that it's a trade-off, but that she still maintains ownership.

Another student points out to her, "I still own my body even though it has a company's logo on it."

"I'm not so sure," she answers.  "I think they're just using you for free advertising."

*     *     *

As we move into differentiating needs and wants, I'm struck by the way we've turned needs into wants and wants into needs.  My students are convinced they need a cell phone in case of an emergency, as if a man with a gun will say, "sure thing, kiddo, just call your mom and let her know you aren't safe."  My students believe that television is a need and if I start to feel judgmental, I need to remember that I've convinced myself that a computer is a need.

Enough.  It's a dangerous concept that would disrupt our system if we believe in it.

So my mind meanders back to the lists. I am struck by the way that we turn people into capital, into human resources, into market shares.  It might be Google or Nike or the public education system, but my students understand that people are making big money off of them. The question is if that knowledge will ever change how they live.

*     *     *

Hey, check out my book Teaching Unmasked   I'm selling it at-cost or you can download it for free as a PDF.

all too often, shame makes me become entirely obtuse while also feeling the need to be right all the time

When I think of the worst possible moments of teaching (the moments that I lost my temper or insulted a student or checked out and grew distant) they all occurred in a moment of shame. In each case, I felt a sense of shame in my own identity; a sense that I had to accomplish more or work harder or act differently.  These were the moments that I bought into the silverscreen superteacher philosophy and forgot just how awkward it is when I try to wear tights.

What happens is that I buy into the lie that I must be perfect.  I set a high standard for mixed motives - to feel superior, to feel needed, to be respected, to prove something to an elusive "them." Then I become an illusionist on par with David Copperfield (I, too, have a hot wife) and attempt to prove to the crowd that I have it all together.

I'm not sure this makes any sense, but a small message can set me off and the result is shame.  A kid says "this class is boring" and instead of listening to his reasons, validating his opinion and taking open criticism, I feel a sense of shame.  So, I grow obtuse.  I fail to listen.  I distance myself so I won't feel hurt, because I so badly want to be right (see diagram above).  If I'm not careful, my response is perfection.  I take fewer chances to hedge my bets.  I fail to engage for fear that I'll be proven imperfect.

*     *     *

Joel doesn't get to watch a ton of television (perhaps tonnage is not the right measurement for time), but this morning I let him watch a Saturday Morning Cartoon.  He saw a commercial about a program that can teach a baby to read and he wept.  I mean, he cried real tears.

"How come that baby can read and I'm still learning how letters sound?" he asked me.

Shame.

"Joel, who you are isn't what you do.  Even on your worst day, even when you have the hardest time with things, you are valuable," I tell him.  "Besides, the commercial is fake.  Babies can't read.  You know that, right?"

Shame is counterfeit humility.  It's as fake as the propaganda promising me that my kid can read.  It's as fake as the lie that multi-billion dollar athletes are more important than teachers.  It's the lie that one should be ashamed of being born at the wrong location, on the wrong side of an arbitrary border.

True humility recognizes that other people matter, leads a person toward transparency and then says, "I'll serve you despite my limitations."  Shame says "you have nothing to give, so you better find a way to fake it so that people think you have your shit together."  I know that they both look similar sometimes on a behavioral level, but shame is actually pretty arrogant.

*      *      *

I want Joel to grow up to be humble.  I want him to know that he doesn't have to put on the mask and act like he has it all together.  I want him to know that grades are actually pretty arbitrary and that, while success is something to celebrate, it means nothing if he does not know how to love.

It has me thinking about students, too.  I wonder how often they listened to the lies of a culture or a standardized system or bitter teacher who told them that they suck.  I wonder how often the behavior that passes as laziness is just another mask students have learned to wear when they feel ashamed.  Perhaps the straight-A student has more in common with the burnout than one would assume.

Here's the thing: Humble people change the world because they don't try to change the world. They accomplish more, because they spend less time worrying about how people view them.  They take chances, because they are confident in their identity rather than having to live out of shame.  Here's one of the intersecting points where parenting and teaching connect: I'm banking on humility rather than shame.

*     *     *

Hey, check out my book Teaching Unmasked   I'm selling it at-cost or you can download it for free as a PDF.

Unlike my students, I don't believe in massive corporate conspiracies - the goal of all corporations is clear.  They want to increase profit.  

I'm not against Google.  I'm not a Google Fanboy, either.  I approach Google with the same general approach I take to all social institutions.  Call me a "small l" libertarian.  I use Google products, but I am careful to call them products.  It's a social contract.  They take information from me in cookies, provide advertisements that I generally ignore and I get to use Google Docs and Blogger and G-mail.  

Still, I was disappointed recently when YouTube dropped all the Hitler parody videos.  (My favorite was one where he lashes out at the Fuhrer for falling into the iPad hype.)  According to the law, these videos fit within Fair Use under the category of satire.  The move was one of a few reasons that I switched from hosting videos on YouTube to Internet Archive.

Here are my reasons teachers should consider Internet Archive:

1. Most schools don't block it.  When the Library of Congress hosts media on the site it is almost guaranteed to be on the "not blocked" list
2. There are no advertisers, advertisements or corporate interests.  While Google will take on China, they will buckle under the pressure of a small German media company.  Internet Archive has made some poor decisions in this area (removing sites critical of Scientology from its Wayback Machine) but their judgment has been more pro-user than Google's approach.
3. Internet Archive is an advocate for free and open media.  When you host a video, you choose a specific Creative Commons license. 
4. Given their investment in the Wayback Machine, there is a sense that they will remain a permanent  organization.  They have a sense of posterity in their organizational philosophy.  I made the mistake before of hosting videos on TeacherTube only to lose them.  I don't have that fear with Internet Archive.

Today we had students at the nearby high school do a walk-out to protest the new immigration bill. I kept thinking, "It's so arbitrary. It's just land. Why do we color it politically."

A teacher claimed that most of them were walking out just to get outside, since it's such a nice day.

Isn't that the act of rebellion in a modern society? It's the notion that those who once lived among the land can still call it home. It's the notion that political and social boundaries do not supercede the land, the mud, the source of the adobe abodes that once lined this desert. It's the notion that those who work the land are as important as those who benefit from the labor.

It's the notion that a group of kids are motivated as much by the pull of geography as they are anything else.

We believe in the lie of the forbidden fruit. Call it apple or an a-bomb, a slippery serpent or a slimy politician. We've been duped by the lie that the garden isn't beautiful and that we should ditch it to run after specialized knowledge and all so that we can determine the good and the evil.

*      *      *

I knew the walk was going to happen. I recieved over sixty e-mails last night and a few Twitter messages. Most were simply sending it to anyone on their address book. However, a few were directly to me.

One boy wrote me and mentioned being influenced by our class discussion of majority rule and minority rights and the notion that freedom dies when the minorities lose their rights. Another student wrote me with specific questions about the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. A girl put together a list of Bible verses about God's heart for the immigrant and she wanted me to know she had stolen them from my blog. I informed her that I stole them from old, dead writers, so we were even. A few students mentioned to me the notion of a social voice.

My students wrote with voice and clarity and used correct grammar and punctuation. I taught them that, too. I need to remember that concept when I get bored with editing papers.

But I taught them geography, not simply memorize where the capitals are, but real geography - people, place, region, space, movement, time. They learned through interviews and debates. I don't pretend to take credit for their act of courage today. But it was affirming to realize that I was a part of what shaped it.

And oddly enough it was geography that brought us together. Forced by the parish concept into a neighborhood school, sitting in room five, a community developed on that little rectangle of industrial carpet. I kept hoping that one day they would walk out of it and take action. I kept hoping social justice would mean more than our trips to the food bank and pots for the nursing home. Today I saw that hope come alive.

"Hey Techno-Tommy, I need you to fix this paper.  It seems I can't erase it for some reason."

"It's covered in scribbles.  Have you considered updating your paper and using a new page."  

"Just make it work," he tells me.  

The same morning, as I'm setting up for lesson plans, another teacher walks in.  "My notebook is broken."  

"What do you mean, broken?"  

"The rings won't work anymore," she explains.  "I have no idea what happened." This is code word for, "I dropped this and don't want to buy a new binder."  

The same day, I have a teacher complain to me about her notebook.  "I was running out of room on my notebook and then I got sick of having a cluttered desktop.  You know, papers everywhere and all, so I tossed it in the trash can. I have a lot more space now, but I can't seem to find my lesson plan folder." 

"You can't get it out of the trash can," I explain.

"But I've done that before."

"Yes, but if the trash is emptied, I can't go search through the landfill to find your lesson plan folder."

Paper and binders are flimsier than slates and they require a little more care.  I'd love to say that teachers always do an amazing job being stewards of materials, but I've found that they can be worse than the kids.  It has me thinking that perhaps we won't see full pencil integration (a term that still jars me) until pencils become either a durable or consumable good.  For the time being, they are still too expensive to fix and too easy to break.  

This is one of the podcasts I didn't post and instead saved to draft. I'm posting it now.

I actually saw this occur - great intentions don't always mean change

After a teacher drops off a tub of papers for recycling, a student says, "They seem really proud of how much paper they are recycling, but what are they doing to prevent using so much paper in the first place?"  It's a valid question, though one that can feel a bit judgmental.  Everyone is on a journey.  For some, recycling is a big step toward eco-friendliness and for others being eco-friendly involves seriously cutting consumption.

I want my class to be green.  I want solar tubes to replace the lighting and solar panels to provide the electricity.  I want an organic garden for our school cafeteria food, but these things are costly, inefficient in the short-run and require a level of expertise that I lack.

So, I do what I can.  I teach nearly paperless.  I am moving from iMacs to lower-energy netbooks.  I am careful about lighting.  However, these can feel small, like the teacher who gets excited about a tub of recycling while ignoring the bigger issue of an extractive, consumer-driven economy.

*     *     *

At home, we're slowly making a paradigm shift from a consumer-based domestic economy to a productive, sustainable economy.  We use a more eco-friendly cloth diaper with Brenna.  We're gardening more, using compost more often and thinking about how often we buy packaged goods.  Within the next month, I'll go back to riding my bike to work instead of using a car and during the summer, our thermostat will be higher than the average Phoenician.

Still, on a day to celebrate the earth, I am more likely to feel guilty than anything else.  I should celebrate sustainability.  I should be thankful for the progress I'm seeing around me.  Instead, I feel a certain sense of shame - like I'm a heretic in a cathedral on Christmas morning, wondering if there's a place for me.  Today should be like Purim and instead I treat it like Yom Kippur. (I'm not Jewish, but I couldn't think of any holidays to draw from that don't connect to make-believe creatures or blowing shit up in the name of patriotism)


Hey, check out my book Teaching Unmasked   I'm selling it at-cost or you can download it for free as a PDF.

When I was a first year teacher, I thought it mattered if I knew hip hop, so I listened to the local hip hop station.  Okay, it wasn't so local, if Clear Channel owned each one, but it was local enough.  Nelly was popular at the time, so if I could make a joke about Nelly's face Band-Aid, I would appear to be "with it."

I mistook novelty for relevance, whether that novelty was pop culture or playing a new game with my class or being ahead of the curve on some new teaching strategy.  I modified Silent Ball to be Don't Screw Up and I played it, not because I thought review was important, but because it made me seem relevant.

Like the American Idol contestant who tries too hard to be hippy on classic rock night or the nerdy kid who thinks a new pair or skinny jeans will earn him street cred, I simply became irrelevant.  I made my students nervous because I was trying too hard.

Fortunately, this confusion ended at the end of my fourth week of teaching when we had an intense class debate and a student told me, "Can we scrap the games and have more of this?"  Don't get me wrong, we still have a fun activities, but she hit on something deep.  Our class borrowed a strategy from Socrates.  While it was far from novel, it was relevant.

What makes a class relevant?  I don't have all the answers, but I've noticed the following:

• It's relevant if it's personal - Students need to know that the subject relates to their lives and to their world.
• It's relevant if it's practical - Students want to know that they will use what they are learning.
• It's relevant if it's philosophical - Kids are deep thinkers and they need a chance to explore these deeper issues.  Philosophy doesn't start in college.  It starts when my four year old asks me why it's wrong to kill a dog but it's okay to eat a hamburger.  
• It's relevant if it relates to now, but gives a glimpse of the future - This is tricky, I realize.  However, telling a student "you'll use this some day" doesn't make sense if they have to hold off a decade to use it.  At the same time, they need a chance to anticipate their future and role-play it in various ways.
• It's relevant if it connects to student interests - By this I mean there are interests that are the center of a child's universe.  If I can connect learning to those interests, it become more relevant.
• It's relevant if it's challenging - Kids will see a subject as irrelevant if it is too easy or too hard.  How does this relate to me if I've done this already and how does this relate to me if I won't possible be able to do it?
• It's relevant if it connects to a story - Not all learning is narrative.  However, I have found that stories are powerful methods for the learning to connect to life. 

Relevance is not necessarily:

• Fun - yes, playing Extreme Paintball online might be fun, but it's not relevant.  
• Exciting - I'm not suggesting that class is supposed to be boring, but an activity that is adrenaline-pumping doesn't necessarily mean deeper thinking. 
• Novel 

This is a second in the series Motivation and Metaphor.  Here I mention the concept of mystery in motivation and I use the metaphor of remote controls.

Hey, check out my book Teaching Unmasked   I'm selling it at-cost or you can download it for free as a PDF.

This is the first in a series of videos I will be doing on Motivation and Metaphor.  Each day I will explore one aspect of motivation and provide a metaphor to go with it. You can access it at Internet Archive or you can look below (it should be working in the feed, but if not, you might go to my blog)

Hey, check out my book Teaching Unmasked   I'm selling it at-cost or you can download it for free as a PDF.

I rarely use the term "my kids" when describing my students.  "My kids" are Joel and Micah and Brenna. I love my students and I love my kids, but the love is very different.   I'd give up a weekend for my students.  I'd take a bullet for my kids.

Still, on some level, I'm a surrogate parent.  I see some students for a longer amount of time than their parents see them.  I listen when they share stories of tragedy.  I celebrate when they kick the winning goal or when they write a beautiful poem or when they grasp a concept for the first time.  I stand up for them win they are bullied. However, I am a really bad carbon copy of a bad carbon copy of a parent.  I'm a Velveeta version of a dad, but I'm entrusted to help develop a child's learning and even when I feel a bit too Velveeta, the responsibility can feel overwhelming.

Despite this reality of a "surrogate parent," being a parent and being a teacher feel very different.

In being a parent, I am openly affectionate.  Hugs and "I love you" are a norm at my house.  At school, I can tell a student they are respected and offer high-fives.

In being a teacher, I can be blatantly educational in ways that I can't with my own kids.  I doubt that I will read The Republic with Joel when he is in the seventh grade.  However, as a parent, I can find long-term educational pursuits that fit my children's intrinsic interests and require no grades, no rubrics and no lesson plans.

As a parent, I can instill my values and have conversations about my faith.  As a teacher, I can navigate these conflicts of values and help people appreciate the diversity of a different viewpoint.

As a parent, I can watch learning occur over the natural course of life, thus relating life to learning.  As a teacher, I can take a clunky, artificial curriculum and relate it to life.

As a parent, I get to provide a holistic education, over the course of a lifetime.  As a teacher, I get kids for a short time and thus learn from mistakes from year to year.  As a dad, I am permanent.  As a teacher, I am provisional.

As a parent, I get to participate in multi-age education.  I get to watch an almost five year old mentor a three year old on how to sound out letters. As a teacher, I get to be entirely age-appropriate and customize each lesson to their own cognitive and emotional development.

*     *     *

Hey, check out my book Teaching Unmasked   I'm selling it at-cost or you can download it for free as a PDF.

As I approach my new job working part-time as a teacher and part-time for the district office, I find myself remaining silent when people suggest it is our duty to use pencils to "prepare kids for the industrial economy."  It's the Guilded Age, the day of steel and factories and information spread worldwide via telegraph and so pencils should prepare students for the twenty-first century, right?

We don't have electricity in our home.  The grid is new and I don't trust it.  No telegraph or telephone.  Off the tele and if they someday invent a tele-picture or tele-image or tele-vision, why, I'll probably avoid that, too.  No photographs.  I don't want my daughter growing up to believe the lies of an advertisement age.  I don't want her to believe her self-worth is the result of what girdle she buys.

We have a garden.  Dirt and water makes mud.  Mud and creativity make clay.  We create - whether it's pots and pottery or soup and salad - but we are never under the impression it came from us.  Perhaps the greatest gift I can give my daughter is the notion of grace; the concept that we never earned any of it.

We've been moving slowly from an extractive and consumeristic domestic economy (read: home) to one of creativity and sustainability.  I don't pretend that it would work for everyone.  I'm not pretending that we have it all together, either. I still buy the hay to feed my horse.  I make a money with ideas, often ideas that I'm asked to sell rather than ideas that students need.  We use pencils and talk about ideas and that's fine.  It really is.  But I still want kids to dig with their fingers, to plant a seed, to study life.

Still, some day our nation will see the damage of the factories, especially in schools.  We'll see the down side of the bell schedules and the rote memorization and the packaged meat worksheets and the whole notion of a teacher as a robotic arm of the machinery.

We'll want a new model for living and perhaps a new model for education.  I'm hoping they'll look back a bit, over their shoulders if need be.  In another century, I hope they'll still have a place in their public memory for the one-room school house I had and the tight-knit community of my hometown in Kansas.  I hope, before building something more futuristic, they'll consider the options of creativity and sustainability.

I want my students to avoid Bob's mistake -- the lie that it's the machinery that creates the relationships

"Mr. Spencer, I forgot how to edit a blog post on Edublogs.  Will you help me?"

"I'm sorry.  I use Blogger," I answer.  I won't look it up, either.  I know, I know.  I sound like a lousy teacher, but it's deliberate.  I want this child to learn the skill on her own.  So, she asks a neighbor who is using a different blogging site and then she finally looks it up online.

It's a small example of my minimalist approach to technology skills.  I give students assignments and I let them figure out the organizational structure.  Students use whatever tools they need (at lunch time I'll see them finishing an assignment using an iPod Touch or a PS3).

Later that day, a student says, "What's the best app for a wiki?"  The term "app" here is significant.  Students choose applications rather than programs - a subtle shift in language, but a powerful one.  I don't need my students to be programmed.  I don't need a Course Management System.  I need my students to find the applications that they can apply to their learning.

Again, I say, "What is the essence of a wiki?  What makes a wiki a wiki?"

"I guess it's a site that anyone can view and it has lots of authors."

"Good, so what are you thinking."

"I'm thinking I could use Google Sites or PBWorks, but I could also just add a lot of authors on Blogger.  A blog can be a wiki, right?"

*      *     *

My classes uses a Ning, but it's only the second time I've allowed it.  I chose it because I wanted to meet them at their level. However, I have my reservations about social networks.  If I want students to own their education than the impetus of organization should be the need to self-manage.  Students need to figure out what organizational structure they need for a task.

Blogs and readers and Google Notebook and Google Docs and Zoho are all examples of the sites my students choose as we approach projects.  Students use instant messenger and e-mail and shared documents for communication.  They publish on blogs and sites and wikis.  The point is that they are the ones who make the decisions regarding the organization of learning.

So, next year when Ning is not an option, nothing will change, because the real social network is the connection of relationship that bonds together the students in my class.  It's the messy, sticky, earthy community that matters.  Everything else is just an application.

*     *     *

Hey, check out my book Teaching Unmasked   I'm selling it at-cost or you can download it for free as a PDF.

I'm  not so sure I want my son learning body image from the image culture

I stand on the treadmill and glance up at the three television sets.  On one, a multimillion dollar athlete tries to sound eloquent before a black backdrop.  I have no idea what he is saying, but his body language is tense and rigid.  He is more at-home on the court than in a studio.  On another screen a pundit claiming his "no spin zone," attempts to spin a guest as an ignoramus.  Both men are yelling, pointing fingers, playing for talking points in a War of Words.  I have no idea what they are saying.  It's about immigration, I guess, but the content doesn't matter.  I'm not listening, but neither is the pundit and his guest.  On a third screen is a middle age woman telling people they don't have to have an hour-glass figure to be sexy.  Saggy boobs will work, too.  So long as you buy the right moisturizing soap, beauty can be skin-deep.

I pray.  Not aloud and on some level not allowed, either.  It's the Cathedral of the Image, from the posters on the walls to the sculpted muscle mythology to the screens above my head.  I pray because it's the hardest place for me to believe God is real.  I've never doubted God in a thunderstorm or a mountaintop or when I stand barefoot in the backyard holding a child who points at the moon.  But in front of Factor and the soap lady and the multimillion dollar athlete, it's hard to believe that the imagery isn't real.

*      *      *

Marshall McLuhan said "the medium is the message."  Plato said the same thing, but he didn't say it all clever like Marshall.  He didn't use soundbytes and it's easier to quote a soundbyte than a dialog.  I can claim that the message of the first screen is anti-immigration or the second screen is about the injustice of locking up Iverson or the message of the third screen is that I need to buy Dove to become a sex symbol.

Or I can look at the box.  The message is simply, "Hey, I'll entertain you if you look at me.  I'm fast and I'm fun and I'm easy and always turned on - me, the box, not the soap, I'm the sexy one." And if I'm not careful, I'll buy into that lie, slowly seduced to give up a few hours of my life in exchange for some mild amusement.

*     *     *

Joel and Micah think Big Bird is real. They think he lives inside of the box.  We limit their t.v. viewing, because we don't want them to believe the lie of an image culture - that what really matters is how something looks . . . no, not how it looks, but how it seems to look.

I don't want my sons to believe that their sexual identity will come through soap or that their view on their immigrant friends has anything to do with pundit shouting matches or that the real heroes in this world are folks who can shoot a basket.  I don't want them to believe that the source of truth is the news or that smooth, authoritative voices mean something is more accurate.  I don't want them buying into the lies of the image culture.

I don't want my students to buy into the lie, either.

And yet . . . I don't want to be completely irrelevant.  So, though I don't really want Joel or Micah to talk to machinery, they just might watch a few episodes of Bob the Builder. Though I don't want them to live vicariously through multimillion dollar athletes, we just might see a few games together.  My hope is that they'll discover the paradox of being counter-cultural while remaining immersed in a culture. They'll see how hard it is and they'll be humbled.

Perhaps if they feel humble enough, they just might choose to pray.

*     *     *

Hey, check out my book Teaching Unmasked   I'm selling it at-cost or you can download it for free as a PDF.

A local special interest (called the Clean Reading Approach Project) group has lobbied to rid our school of the library.  "Searching for information in a library, students might stumble upon information that is contrary to their viewpoint," a man suggested.

"Couldn't that child simply not believe it?"

"Their minds are impressionable," the man responded.

"So, let parents make a decent first impression," I explained.

The librarian offered a new solution.  Instead of banning all information, perhaps we could create a book filtering program where we might be able to search for books that are appropriate for children.  After all, in this wild information age, we need an authority figure who can decipher what is best for children.

*     *      *

So, we get our list two weeks later from the Book Banning Committee. "You want to ban Tolstoy?" I ask the representative.

"He's offensive.  And Anna Karenina has some lewd material in it."

"What about our one American classic, The Scarlet Letter?"

"The protagonist is an adulterer and I hate to be a spoiler but the man who caused the problems is a minister."

"No Mark Twain?"

"Can you trust the guy?  He won't even use his real name.  That man is shifty, I tell you."

He hands me the codes they use for the books: occultism, nudity, violence, sexual situations, homosexuality (got Whitman right there), anti-family, unsuitable to age group, suicide.

"I have a book that has all of these characteristics.  In fact, that main character tells people to abandon their family, is brutally murdered and then his friend commits suicide.  Oh yeah, and he is friends with hookers. Should we ban it?"

"Sure, what's the title."

"Oh, it's the Bible."

*      *      * 

Oddly enough, one of the lessons he could have learned from my suggested banned book is that banning something only makes someone want it more.  I stole that argument from Paul in Romans (the dead guy and not Paul the Pre-industrial Poet).  

Some day kids will quit reading The Scarlet Letter, not because it is so boring (which it is) but because it will be mandatory school reading.  If the Book Banning Committee really wants to prevent kids from reading inappropriate texts, they should suggest them as required reading. 

sometimes the natural has something important to say to the artificial - sometimes the answers aren't found in new innovations, but in searching for what is buried beneath the industrial carpet 

At one time, I mocked anyone who believed in "natural remedies," as simply following New Age quackery. I heard horror stories about folks who refused life-saving surgery and opted for bee sting therapy instead.  To me, people who followed a natural approach were following an ideology rather than cold, hard science.

When I married Christy, things changed.  Here was someone more rational than myself telling me to solve a cold with saline or talking about eating habits and exercise as the key to preventing illness.  For her, the body was whole and sickness often accompanied emotional stress.  None of this sounds crazy now, but it was a far cry to my upbringing of "I feel crappy, so which box do I go to?"

I'm not against "traditional" medicine by any means.  If I someday have cancer, I just might turn to chemotherapy.  However, I'll probably also alter my diet.  To me, it's not an either/or issue.  I want science to address a specific illness but also deal with the whole body.  I want cutting edge technology, but I also want time-tested remedies.

I find myself turning to something natural when it works and so far, the natural solutions have often been more effective.  So, why did I reject natural solutions for years? I think I bought into a few cultural values.  I believed that the economic cost was essential to productive results and that the newest solutions were always the best.  I bought into clever packaging and the lie that convenience is synonymous with simplicity.

*      *      *

A special ed kid agonizes over his standardized test.  I watch him underline words and write notes in the margin.  Before the test, he says, "I hate reading.  But you know what?  I'll do my best.  Wanna know why?  I like my teachers and I don't want them to get in trouble."

The test is artificial, cleverly packaged with official-sounding language.  It lacks any connection to context.  The whole experience is not natural - from the fluorescent lights above to the silent white noise of a solitary humming computer to the bubble sheet meant for bubble kids to pass a bubble test so we can be a bubble-wrapped school.  The passages are choppy.

When the test ends, the special ed kid becomes a hypocrite.  He pulls out Diary of a Whimpy Kid and I catch a glimpse of a bookmark he's made for it (Diary of a Whimpy Kid Old School, with the whimpy riding a low-rider and smiling with pimped out grill).  No notes on the margins.  No underlined phrases.  No one demanding that he answers a question at the end of each chapter.

*      *      *

I'm thinking the natural solution for struggling readers might be in the simplicity category.  What if a part of what they need is simply more time reading?  What if a part of what they need is something that isn't in the packaged pill form, but is a little more natural?  I'm not opposed to teaching direct strategies, just as I'm not opposed to surgery or chemo.  However, it seems that we've cut off the natural solutions and opted for artificiality in education. 

My guess is that the people who support standardized education aren't evil.  They just have a paradigm that mistakes efficiency for simplicity, that believes a solution should come at an economic cost.  They buy into the myth that science cannot be natural or holistic and that the best solutions are always the newest. 

*      *      *

I find it ironic that throughout the suburbs, parents are packing recycled lunchboxes with whole, natural, organic foods and feeling okay about worksheets, testing marathons and an artificial system of rewards and punishments.  The school cafeteria is simply a microcosm of the school at large.  The factory-style process of a school cafeteria isn't too different from how I am required to spend my day 29% of the time. 

The other 70% is mine and my solutions will often be holistic and natural.  The sultans of standardization  would probably mock my beliefs as mere ideology, but if they step into my classroom, they'll see that it works better than a system of worksheets and tests.   

*     *     *

Hey, check out my book Teaching Unmasked   I'm selling it at-cost or you can download it for free as a PDF.

"Tom, what are your thoughts on giving homework?" Mr. Brown asks.

"I don't like it.  If I truly believe that learning happens 24-7 then why not let the kids do the learning on their own?"  

"So, you don't assign any work?"

"Nope.  None. I think the word 'work' is key there.  I'm more interested in learning than working and I don't want to kill their motivation to learn."  

"If you really feel that way about homework, why do you make them work when they are in class?"  he asks.  

"It's not a choice." He's silent for awhile and finally says, "I guess you really can't completely scrap grades. But, are you ever worried that we won't be preparing students for colleges? I mean, with the pencil initiatives and the lack of homework and all.  Are you ever afraid you're doing more harm than good?"  

"Look, I hear that same argument with pencils.  People tell me, 'Techno-Tommy, you realize they will use pens and not pencils when they are in college.'  But here is my issue with that: they're not in college. I wouldn't make that argument for having kids binge drink or have sex with strangers.  I wouldn't suggest kids go wherever they please or smoke cigarettes in the halls.  I wouldn't suggest we reduce the school day to two hours and then allow them to do homework on their own time.  You know why?" 

"Why?" 

"Because they are kids, Brown.  That's why." 

This leads to a deeper conversation.  Brown goes back to the issue of college readiness and suggests that maybe there is some validity on the importance of kids still using pen and ink rather than simply busting out pencils.  He mentions a tension between preparing kids for the future and teaching them at their developmental level. 

He shares his concerns with the lack of permanence in pencils.  "Just look at the phrase 'pencil you in.' It's a reminder that all things can be erased.  I wonder sometimes if we need pen and ink to remind students that words are permanent and not cheap."

We argue and criticize.  We laugh, just so that we can argue at a deeper level without anyone getting hurt.  Mr. Brown brings up points about relevant, meaningful homework and I share ideas of extension activities that are ungraded and voluntary.  He warns me about going slate-free and suggests that I am being as stubborn as the anti-pencil people when I refuse a medium just because it's not cutting edge.

We find common ground and yet we still disagree.  

For all the talk about relevant professional development, I'm convinced that our conversation led to a higher level of professionalism simply because it was so unprofessional.  It was casual and chaotic.  It was interactive.  At times, it was offensive.  But it was real.  

This week is AIMS.  I'll wander the Cathedral of Data feeling like a heretic.  I'll listen to the taboos to avoid during Holy Week and I'll participate in the ritual.  At the end, I'll ask them for my soul back and if I'm lucky, I won't lose my passion.

I've written numerous blog posts about why I am against testing.  I believe the real issue goes beyond testing.  It's an issue of standardization of all things school-related, from discipline plans to curriculum to assessment. I wrote a book about this issue.  However, I would like to address the amount of time spent taking multiple choice tests rather than learning. 

Technically, we have 179 days in a school year.  However, we have half days, "fluff days" (the last day of each quarter), professional development, assemblies, fire drills, bus evacuation drills and other disruptions.  The last week is a bit of a joke, too, because grades are due that Monday.  So, we can reduce the number of days  (being generous) to 170.

AIMS - One Week (5 days)
Galileo - Four Weeks (20 days)
DRA / AIMSweb - (5 days)
AZELLA Pre and Post Tests - for ELL Students (5 days)
Common Assessment - every two weeks, every subject (16 days)

Total: We have a total of 45-50 days spent testing, which equals 27-29% of the school year (depending upon ELL status).  In other words, over one quarter of the school year is a testing quarter.

If teaching is supposed to mirror the workplace, can you think of any job where you are required to fill out a multiple choice test one quarter of the time?

If teaching is supposed to prepare students to live well, can we possibly justify spending over a quarter of it on multiple choice exams?

Hey, check out my book Teaching Unmasked   I'm selling it at-cost or you can download it for free as a PDF.

This last weekend, we watched a couple of neighborhood kids for a whole day.  Micah kept forgetting their names, but just referred to them as "my friends."  In fact, that seems to be the going phrase they use for one another.  For all the talk of the death of community in America, I find that community is alive and well in the last place one might expect it: suburbia.  My trendy hipster friends who live in downtown forge community at coffee shops and indie bookstores, which is great.  But I still think that even the trendiest hipster could learn something from the kids in my neighborhood. 

So, why does community thrive in a neighborhood?  Why do kids "get it" when adults don't.  Here are my thoughts:

1.  Everyone is a friend: No one is an acquaintance, a colleague or a co-member of an organization.  
2. They play together: When I hang out with people at church or in my neighborhood, we talk.  Unfortunately, the conversations have to stay shallow, so we're kind-of stuck with weather, arbitrary victories of home-town sports teams and talking about our jobs.  
3. They navigate conflict together: I'd love to paint a rosy picture of kids and share about how wonderful they are and how they can teach us to grow.  However, I have to admit that they are mean to each other.  Real mean.  I can't think of the last time I smacked someone on the face and called that person "Mr. Poopy Guy."  Maybe I should, because it gets it out there and it's actually less destructive than social isolation and gossip. 
4. They take risks together.  I can't think of the last time I climbed a tree or jumped off of something high with a group of people.  
5. No one is afraid: This is huge.  Kids haven't been burned as often as adults, so they don't wander the neighborhood skeptical of who will be a back-stabber.
6. Open Minds: Young kids have fewer preconceived ideas about how people should act or look or what they should believe
7. A lack of choice: Without cars or cell phones, the kids have few choices regarding social interaction.  For all the talk of online community, the lack of choice might be the greatest glue that keeps a community together.

Hey, check out my book Teaching Unmasked   I'm selling it at-cost or you can download it for free as a PDF.

"So, are you going to take that job?" Mr. Brown asks.

"Yeah, I think I am."

"What about our proposal?" asks Mrs. Jackson.   "That was our baby."

It's silent.  "I mean, oops, these are Victorian times.  We would never have a baby together.  It's a metaphor you know.  Because, well, it would be wrong on so many levels . . . okay, just one level, but one very important level and you know . . . "

"I get it.  I know how to spot a metaphor," I explain.

"What's going to happen to it?" Mr. Brown asks.

"I'm going part-time.  I'll work as a pencil teacher the first half of the day then oversee our plan, the new pencil professional development and the district pencil classes.  Nothing will change."

"Don't lie to yourself.  You can't be pulled away and change both your status and position and pretend that things will be the same.  We'll be friends, but I guarantee that you will change."

"People always promise that they'll stay in touch, that they'll stay grounded.  But even if you teach part time you forget.  You forget how to hold your bladder for hours.  You forget what it's like when one kid wears you down by the end of the day.  I don't think it's wrong that you're going half-half, but don't be shocked if you only feel like half a teacher."

It's like a shot of whiskey and I'm thinking whiskey shouldn't be consumed at ten thirty in the morning.  So, I change the topic.  "How about that local hometown sports team?  I hear they are doing really well and perhaps we can live vicariously through their arbitrary athletic pursuits."

I meet up with Paul the Pre-industrial Poet for a pint.  We promise not to have "shop talk," but inevitably it slips in. I suppose it's because neither of us really views teaching as a shop.  If it were, we'd have left long ago for a higher paying gig - and who knows, perhaps that's why teachers will never completely demand their rights. It's easy to screw over people who aren't in it for the money.

Mr. Brown says he doesn't mind that they screw us over, but they at least owe us a smoke afterward.  He can get away saying stuff like that, because his highly educated accent makes even the crudest comments sound charming to Americans.

"So, I met with the sales guy from the American Telephone and Telegraph company. He's trying to sell me on this idea of having a telephone in my room and a telegraph at my school."

"Are you going to do it?" he asks.  

"I have my reservations.  It just seems like another example of a teacher-centered technology.  Like an Edison projector or a chalkboard from Man-Who-Stole-Fire-From-The-Gods company.  Seriously, a century from now every classroom will have a phone and teachers will still be the ones to use it."  

"Maybe.  Or a century from now, they'll find a way to combine the telephone and the telegraph and they'll make it portable.  It's what happens to all media.  Pictographs are permanent and expensive and located on cave walls and then they are portable on papyrus and then the printing press turns reading from a collective experience to an individual one.  Some day they'll do the same to motion pictures and telephones and maybe all on one device."  

"Sounds cool to me.  Students will finally have a chance to use a technology that was once teacher-centered."  

"Maybe.  Or maybe schools will ban them, because the real issue is one of power.  Who wants students to have instant access to information at all times?  Dangerous stuff, Tom.  Teachers won't want to give up the control.  So, my guess is like the pen pal networks and the personal journals, schools will ban the portable telegraphs."

I remember having mixed feelings when reading Motorcycle Diaries.  I had a hard time reconcling the journal entries of a slightly angry idealist with the violence of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. It seemed that he genuinely cared about the plight of the poor, the injustices imposed by the power elite and rigged system that kept people marginalized.  His diagnosis was accurate.

The book was unsettling for me, because I saw something of his personality in myself.  Some of the entries read like my own journal entries from working at an urban non-profit in college. On some level, I get Che.  I, too, get pissed of when I see injustice.  I make bold statements against those who marginalize the poor.  I have a strong sense of justice and a compassion toward those whose voices are silenced.  However, like Che, I can all too easily miss the nuances of the issues because I ride through life on an idealogical motorcycle.  Che felt for the poor, but he never spent enough time in their homes to speak for them.  He knew them as a group, but he didn't know them as human.

*      *      *

Sometimes I read blog posts about what works in educational reform.  Like Che, the diagnosis is often fairly accurate.  Kids can't read (shocking, I know).  Students are bored.  Certain schools aren't producing results.  However, like Che, the reformers run around on motorcycles and never get to know the people.  Data can speak volumes, but it's like a busted car stereo - all volume, but mostly distortion.

I notice this trend on the left and the right, in the twenty-first century folks and the back-to-basics traditionalists.  Even the story-telling begins to feel a bit like an act.  I read about an amazing charter school where every child is actively engaged and I wonder who those children are.  Even in the best lesson when students are outwardly behaving, I see minds wander away and I hear murmurings of "this is boring."

I need to remember that it's way too easy for me to jump on a motorcycle, tell some great stories and miss the complexity of the issues.

*     *     *

I wonder what it would have looked like if Che lived among the people a little while longer.  What would have happened if he parked his motorcycle in a tiny village, wishing to see, not the entire world, but individual people (and thus the collective whole)?

I wonder if he would have been a little more like Paulo Freire, leading a quiet revolution of adult education.  I wonder what would have happened if he had dropped his gun, but more importantly, dropped his pride, and listened a little more.


Hey, check out my book Teaching Unmasked   I'm selling it at-cost or you can download it for free as a PDF.

You can listen below or at Internet Archive

The iPad like a spork - able to do everything and yet do nothing well.

I'm a Linux, but I look like a PC and I'm artsy enough to be a Mac, but somewhere within my soul is a bit of a Smith-Corona and wants to learn what it means to have no delete, to know the permanence of words and the notion that what I press as a key cannot be undone.  

Multiple Tech Personality Syndrome?

Admittedly, I have mixed feelings regarding homework.  Some students need extra help and it needs to be after hours - whether it's tutoring or homework.  Also, I know that learning should take place everywhere, so even the term "work" isn't entirely what I'm after.  I don't assign homework in my class.  Okay, I don't assign graded homework.  I have "extension activities" and students choose whether or not they want to work on these activities on their own time.  Right now, the rate is about 75% completion.  I'd love a respectful conversation, though, as I approach self-contained next year.

The questions swirling in my mind are:

1. Does homework ruin motivation?
2. Can homework be authentic and meaningful and relevant to the students' lives?
3. If students don't have a home life that supports meaningful learning, what responsibility does a teacher have to provide a place where extension learning can occur?

*     *     *

Hey, check out my book Teaching Unmasked   I'm selling it at-cost ($4.99) or you can download it for free as a PDF.

"Mr. Johnson, why do we use pencils?"  Cynical Gifted Boy asks.

"It's a learning tool.  Why do we learn?"  I ask him.

"We learn to pass the test so that we can get into the honor's program in junior high so that we can pass the test to get into the honor's program in high school so that by 1901 we can pass the new SAT test so that we can get into the better university so that we can get a better job,"  Cynical Gifted Boy answers.

"What then?" I ask him.  

"I think you work hard and look forward to retirement, where you wonder what happened to your life and why no one wants to talk to you, because they are too busy passing the test to get the job to get the high pay to guarantee that they'll have a good retirement."  

What if we taught in the now rather than as a preparation for the future?  Don't get me wrong, we are always preparing for something else, but it happens by being relevant today.  I use pencils and paper, not because it is necessary for a particular job, but because it is what they need right now to learn.  

for what it's worth, I want ethical workers and hard-working citizens

I participated in #edchat tonight and noticed a trend.  Most educators are "forward thinking," and I'm a bit backwards.  Not in a Pleasantville way, but in a preindustrial, Socrates-still-has-a-point-to-say kind of way. I want reform, but I want to look backward as we look forward.  I want to recover what is lost before we simply move onto the post-industrial industrialism.

Another trend I noticed was a mini-battle between those who believe education should serve the economy versus those who believe it should serve life-long learning.  It's not a new dichotomy, but I still think it's a false one.  At one time, formal education, be it classical or spiritual, existed as a set of concepts that led to a journey, an intangible, life-long quest for wisdom.  Underneath, informally, through apprenticeships and familial relationships, a more earthy, terrestrial, skills-based, practical education existed.

As we shifted toward an industrial economy, the chasm increased.  Students had to choose the vocational route (which had little to do with vocare or calling) or a classical route.  At some point a classical, liberal arts idea became simply an uppity, ivory tower, endeavor and colleges began spending more resources on vocational courses like business.

Sometimes, when I read comments against preparing kids for the workforce, I cringe.  I teach students in poverty.  I'm kidding myself if I think job skills make no difference.  But I'm also kidding myself if I think a job is the bottom line.  I want students to get a job, but I also want them to contribute to society, grow in wisdom and live well.  A job is a piece of that, but it's only a piece.  I want students to be economic, but I want them to recover the sense of "eco" in economy and see how an economy can move from unrelenting growth to sustainability.

So, I'm think maybe it's time we look at the intersections between the two ideas.  Perhaps it's a paradox. Perhaps learning is conceptual and skills-based, basic and advanced, tactile and abstract, economic and personal, philosophical and practical.  Maybe the streams need to meet.


Hey, check out my book Teaching Unmasked   I'm selling it at-cost or you can download it for free as a PDF.

sometimes it is more dangerous to try and combine two subjects that shouldn't relate (i.e. football and ancient history)


You can access the podcast at Internet Archive
or listen below (it's unavailable in the feed, so you have to go to the site)

I read a kid's plog today.  It was a free write where he described how horribly bored he was while writing. For a piece about boredom, it was honestly pretty fascinating; vascilating between clever wordplay and edgy sarcasm.  I should have enjoyed it more. However, "that's boring," is a phrase guaranteed to hurt me.  On a very rational level, I get the need for play and the aversion toward work.  What I don't understand is the aversion to learning.  Perhaps I've played a role in blurring the two.

On a more emotional level, I take it personally.  I try hard to make lessons relevant and meaningful, challenging but not too challenging.  I throw myself into what I teach and sometimes the wall of apathy can feel like a wall of spikes. If I'm not careful, tiny disruptions can feel like a slap in the face.  I know, I know, they're kids.  It's not a social contract.

I pull out a paper and write a letter.  It's not meant to be sarcastic and it's not even meant to be sent.  It's a letter to all students:

Dear Student,

I know that learning might feel boring to you.  I know that you want fun.  Clowns and puppets and a Great Dane that juggles fire.  I can't offer you fun.  Don't get me wrong, there will be moments of fun.  There will be moments of humor.  But these are moments.

What I offer is meaning.  I offer you a chance to learn.  I provide you with challenging tasks, a ton of autonomy and a chance to explore the questions in your mind.  If you find that boring, I can't help you.  The truth is that you've been fed a lie.  Through bribes and extortion, you learned that learning is a chore that demands a commodity in return.  I can't give you confectionary delights.

I know that there has been some confusion. You are used to using pencils for the pen pal networks (and admittedly we will use Pen Pal networks in our class) or for creating pictures (we'll do that here, too, sometimes).  Still, our class uses pencils for learning.  If it's fun, that's great.  But fun isn't the bottom line.

You learned that the opposite of boring is fun.  Someday, hopefully, you'll find that fun is not the antithesis of boredom.  It's simply a numbing agent.  It's what you rub on the wound when your sense of meaning has been amputated.  What you need is something that has been missing.  And the true miracle is that it is possible to regain that sense of meaning that you lost somewhere in grade school.

Don't get me wrong, there will moments of boredom and frustration.  I had days when I struggled to learn my multiplication tables and I hated Shakespeare the first go-round.  However, if you can see these moments of dull tasks as an integral part of the meaningful learning experience, you might just find that they become at least a little more tolerable.

Sincerely,

Mr. Johnson

*     *     *

I once viewed pencils as a magical talisman that would transform every student into a self-motivated learner.  I believed that the Pencil Natives would grab hold of a pencil and start creating amazing works of poetry and narrative.  I thought that the simple existence of paper would mean clarity of thought, critical thinking and logic in persuasive writing.

It worked for a day or two, but eventually the pencil novelty wore off and students realized that they were working with tools.  Looking back on it, I was no different than the students. I confused novelty and fun with meaning and depth.  I'd like to think I know better now, but a "that's boring" comment can apparently still throw me over the edge.

pretty innovative stuff there, Arne

Our Scion has somewhere around six or seven cup holders, a change dispenser (which I think is now standard on cars despite the shift toward using ATM cards), a couple of boxes for storing . . . I'm not sure what their intended purpose is.  But the point is that it's loaded with enough features that it is essentially a travelling living room and, while I have no intention of living out of my car, it's comforting to know that I could. Still, other cars have more gadgets.  Flatscreen DVD players in the back, surround sound, wifi, multiple USB ports, GPS.   

Who killed the electric car?  I'm guessing it was the gimmicks (okay, I have no evidence whatsoever to prove this theory).  Instead of figuring out how to build a Chevy that might actually last awhile, the folks at GM perfected the cup holder and gave people ten of them - just in case one needs coffee, soda, bottled water, flavored water and a few spares to hold the old coffee mugs that still need to be brought into the house for cleaning.

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It seems that our culture is obsessed with gimmicks.  A supersized iPod Touch?  It will revolutionize the way you use electronics! It will forever change media.  Steve Jobs is on the cover of Time as a result.  It won't run flash and it won't come with a real keyboard and a touch screen is pointless when you have a mouse, but it's flat and it's shiny and the applications (don't call them programs) dance across the screen with a shimmering reflection below.  Seriously, you should see the reflection.  It's amazing. According to NPR it is the end of the internet as we know it. Who knew a ginormous iPod Touch could transform the entire internet?

Consider how we approach memoirs.  If you want a memoir published, don't spend a lifetime doing something significant and worthwhile.  Find a gimmick, blog about the gimmick and then turn the blog into a book.  Take a year to follow the Levitical law.  Spend a year without a car.  Couldn't someone just write a book by interviewing a rabbi or talking to someone who relies on public transportation?  Not as fun. My guess is the School Lunch Blog will probably become a book, because it's a great gimmick and it is just novel enough to finally grab the attention of a media that doesn't seem too concerned with the experts who have been complaining about school lunches for years.

If only we could find a way to convince America that the artificial education kids receive can be just as dangerous as the artificial food they eat.

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Novelty and gimmickry can have a darker side when applied to real change.  Often a novel idea turns out to be change for the worse if it is nothing more than a gimmick.  That's exactly what happens with educational reform.  The current reform movement has nothing genuinely new to offer the actual system.  Instead it is tweak the standardization process, fire teachers, privatize schools and then hope that it spurs innovation.

The biggest news of Race to the Top is that it is not identical to No Child Left Behind.  Beyond the name and the contest for a wad of cash, there is little substance to the new approach. Still, the New York Times and Time Magazine both laud the new educational reform as the approach that will finally work.

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So, I'll go back to my classroom and try and convince the kids raised in a culture of novelty that some ideas are worth holding onto, that instant does not always equal effective and that hard work and critical thinking are still valuable attributes.  But if it doesn't pan out, I'll dress in a toga and use only Socratic questioning techniques, blog about it for a year and wait for a company to publish it as a memoir.
Hey, check out my book Teaching Unmasked   I'm selling it at-cost or you can download it for free as a PDF.