I used to plan lessons with a construction metaphor. Set up a blue print, lay the foundation and if we have time, save the fun interior decorating for the end. If we failed one day toward the beginning of a unit, students would be lost forever, with cracked concrete that would eventually ruin the structural integrity of a home (as if a broken house and a broken home were synonymous anyway.

Then I spent a little more time around early elementary education teachers during some mandatory district trainings. I noticed their language when describing student learning. They called their students "sprouts" and spoke of "growth" and referred not to the class as a whole, but to individual students. "Sometimes it takes awhile to mature," a third grade teacher explained to a frustrated kindergarten teacher. "Nobody grows at the same rate."

When I switched metaphors to something more organic, I began to view lessons differently. True, there are the ones that truly tank and I suppose the garden equivalent would be to fail to water or to flood the system altogether. However, those are rare. Instead, what I now experience is this notion of do-overs. Remember in playing games when you'd get frustrated and call a do-over? Remember in life, as you got older, you started hearing the subtle message that do-overs are as make believe as Santa Claus and magic carpets?

What I love about learning is that it allows do-overs. In fact, it almost demands do-overs if there is ever anything approaching mastery.

Last year, I had a student who struggled with writing. He stumbled across my blog when he Googled my name (apparently he looks up all his teachers on day one) and he thought I wrote well. "Will you teach me how to write?" he asked. So, we set up a twice-a-week early morning Writer's Workshop with five students. The truth is that he wasn't bad. According to the State Department, he was "Approaches."

We had no grades, no pressure, no rewards or punishments. Just one piece of writing each week. The work was never "complete." Instead, they had as many do-overs as they wanted.

He sent me an e-mail a month ago. "I'm in Honors English right now. You helped me to grow as a writer and I wanted to thank you for that. You taught me not to be afraid of mistakes. I learned that editing didn't have to be a punishment." To be honest, it wasn't all me. He was highly motivated and he had a great language arts teacher. But it made me realize that a part of why I love teaching is that the growth happens because we are allowed to have do-overs.

A few years back, I was on the treadmill, glancing up at the row of television sets begging for my attention. On CNN, a commentator analyzed the cultural implications of Borat. On another, they mentioned the successful move of Howard Stern in going with satellite radio.  On the third channel, red-faced pundit argued with Bill O'Reilly about provocative rap music.

It seemed, at the time, that the ultimate social capital involved shock value.  Here in Arizona, Sheriff Joe was just beginning to get truly media-crazed while nation-wide we listened to ridiculously shocking statements from a president who believed in a make-believe Axis of Evil while a new left-wing Air America claimed that Republicans were all fascists.  Even the Supreme Court had Justice Scalia, who seemed to turn a respectable political institution into his own shock jock program.

It was the age of Paris Hilton shocking American viewers when they were not too busy watching Donald Trump yell at prospective interns.  It was a time when Kanye West told America that Bush didn't care about black people and Bush told us that Climate Change was all in our heads.

Something happened, though.  The shock bubble burst.  All of a sudden it was just noise, really loud noise, and people wanted something that sounded more intelligent, more innovative, more nuanced.  Perhaps Stephen Colbert had more to do with it than anything.  We saw, in his nightly satire, just how ridiculous we had become. Or perhaps the impetus was more generational.  The younger generation, raised on a steady diet of shock and cynicism seems to find a shock jock approach a bit boring. (I mention this realizing that I am guilty of stereotyping here)

I'm not suggesting that the shock jock mentality is dead, but it does seem to be fading some.  Case in point:

• On television, we're less about being shocked and more about seeing humanity in its honest, humble form.  Hence  Cougar Town bombs while the more intelligent, humble, realistic Modern Family succeeds. 
• In movies, Bruno fails to draw our attention.  The shock value is gone.  
• In radio, I notice more people who seem to enjoy a show like This American Life to either left-wing or right-wing propaganda.  Meanwhile, even among shock-jocks, I run into more and more people listening to Adam Carolla than Howard Stern.  
• In music, Justin Beiber and Taylor Swift seem to be leading a pop genre that is so annoyingly saccharine that it lacks any shock value at all.  Even within the rock and rap genres, the shift seems to moving away from shock value.
• In religion, we still have our crazies who blame earthquakes on non-Christians.  However, with the popularity of Donald Miller (whose approach is becoming less shocking with each book) and Rob Bell, the approach (though not necessarily the ideas) seems to be less about shock value and more about dialog.
• In the blogosphere, writers like Seth Godin are proving that being provocative is about innovative thinking rather than insults. Sure, we still have TMZ and Perez Hilton, but I'm hearing more and more about people like Daniel Pink instead.

So, how does all of this connect to education?  My hope is that the crazy days of Michelle Rhee styled education reformers will soon fade as well.  I'm hoping that as we move toward a different model of education reform, we might do so with a tone of humility, intelligence and appreciation for different viewpoints.  I'm hoping that things will be a little less Glenn Beck and a little more like This American Life.

This is the first in a summer blog series.  Each week I will feature one technology tool and how well it worked integrating the technology into this fictional nineteenth century classroom.

"I think you're making a bigger deal out of it then it really is," Mr. Brown tells me.

"Think of the possibilities, Brown."  I have a bad habit of dropping the titles in names, as though we're on a ball field.  "My students can connect to students in other locations instantaneously. We're no longer confined by our own four walls."

"That's great.  Really it is.  But I'm still skeptical.  I think it's a teacher-centered piece of technology."

"It doesn't have to be.  I can have students take turns all day making phone calls and interacting with students in other places.  You know my friend Paul the Pre-industrial Poet?  His class is partnering with me in a phone-integrated project."

"Interesting.  I hope it works out well.  I'm just skeptical, that's all. I'm picturing a day when all the classrooms will have phones and the only one allowed to use them will be the teacher."

"Why are you so cynical about it?"

"If every child had a phone, it would get too noisy.  Even if phones became cheap, teachers wouldn't want that stress.  Plus, they can call the police or the fire department.  So, teachers will do what they can to keep the phones near their desks."

"Maybe.  But I'm thinking phones will be so commonplace that schools will have to let students use them."

"I don't know.  Even if there were tiny phones, the size of a pocket watch, schools would still find ways to keep students from using them. Even if there was a silent way to communicate on a phone, a blend of phone conversations and shorthand messages, they'd still ban them."

"Wow, you really do have a cynical view."

"It's a legal issue.  Schools are designed to mitigate liability.  Nobody's ever sued a school for failing to protect a child's freedom.  But they often sue if a school fails to protect a child's safety.  You can go on and use the phone in your room.  It's the early stage of classroom phones where there's still the possibility of it being used as a learning tool.  Perhaps you can prove that they aren't all that scary. I just imagine that in a few years when we all have classroom phones, the district will create rules preventing students from using a potentially valuable tool."

A Note Ahead of Time: I stole this idea from @rushtheiceberg. If you've never read his blog, you should check it out.

At first, during student teaching, I was MS-DOS, bare-basics, humble, using teaching strategies that were irrelevant and outdated, trying my best to piece together a managable system based upon what I remembered from my childhood. I didn't pretend to be anything else.  I just wanted something basic to run.

Next, I became Windows.  I was professional and business-like.  I followed the popular trends, used the correct  approaches and created a no-nonsense approach that fit what "the real world" uses.  Still, I couldn't be myself.  I couldn't be creative.  I felt the need to follow the commands of the proprietary system handed down from the top.  Then I'd crash.  Reboot.  Crash.  I grew physically sick, not realize that the first year of teaching lent itself to all sorts of viruses.

Like Microsoft, I felt the need to reinvent myself constantly.  Then something happened.  I switched systems.  I created something new, something that others percieved as innovative.  I became flashy and smooth in my self-marketing. All of a sudden, the district had me speaking to large groups.  I had easy answers that people wanted to hear.  I had become OS X.  However, like all things Apple, I didn't play well with others.  True, I seemed approachable, but try and work with me and I was closed-off.

Somewhere in my fourth year, I began to realize that I needed people.  I needed to volunteer.  I needed to share.  I needed to be willing to listen and to sacrifice my agenda.  I became Ubuntu.  I could be honest and open and flexible.  I realized that there is a high cost to an Apple approach, but that I could accomplish more  by being a bit more humble.

So this year, I transformed into the Chrome OS.  It felt the same at first.  Fast, efficient, free, capable of doing more with less time.  I still resembled Linux.  Yet, my approach was much more guarded.  Like Google, I needed to learn everything about my new co-workers before I would trust them and I created safeguards to guarantee it would always be on my terms.  Don't get me wrong, I volunteered.  Yet, I volunteered when it fit my own internal agenda.

As I approach this next year, I think I want to move back to a more Ubuntu approach.  Maybe I'll be like Kubuntu - looking professional on the outside, but creative and open on the inside.

Yesterday someone talked to me about a futuristic ideal.  We'd have a school without walls.  Part cyber-space, part meeting in common areas without walls. "Learning will not have to take place within the confines of your classroom."  On some level, I find a few of these ideas appealing.  I would love to have students attend school for a half day and go off-campus during the other half. Perhaps online learning mixed with job shadowing and service learning.

Still, I like my walls.  Part of what I love about teaching is the very physical prescence that exists because of the walls.  Don't get me wrong.  The space is too small and it's painted an off-white that makes it always look dirty. And yet, when I look around, I see the mural we are painting on one wall.  I see framed student work (I refused to call them "artifacts" because we're not digging them out of caves).  I catch glimpses of the decoupage explanations of reading strategies.

It becomes a symbol to me of the tension of creating beauty in the edu-factory, of staying within the box and yet turning it into my own sand box where I get to play.  The classroom feels as though it is designed to be bland and we get to take the bland canvas and paint our own vision of what learning should be. The physical space creates what becomes our class climate.

Like a home, the classroom becomes a reflection of us.  It's why I don't put up Garfield posters.  Garfield doesn't fit us. It's why I fight battles against prescribed poster and word walls.  The physical climate is important.

So, I like the walls.  I like the physical space.  I like the personal, human interaction that results from it. I like the moment I walk into the room each morning and it's empty, but it's not.  It's filled with memories of another school year and of the students that I have grown to love.

Just some thoughts about mud and mystery and freedom and safety.  If you are using a feed reader, the podcast might not be showing up and you'll need to click on it to go to my actual blog and listen.

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 sure what a principal's official job description involves.  However, I've noticed that in my district, they seem to have the following job responsibilities:

1. Liability Manager: they have to make sure the school doesn't get sued.  While this might sound simple, it means they need to know safety codes, worker's rights, student special education rights, etc.  
2. Human Resources: the principals lead the committees to hire new staff and they have to keep a decent staff climate leading to retention.  If the staff was simply teachers, this would be one thing.  However, the principal must manage a team of custodians, cafeteria workers and various aids.
3. Staff Mediator: when there is conflict, the principal must step in and play Dr. Phil
4. Disciplinarian: I can't imagine a job that require constantly notifying potentially angry parents about fights, graffiti, vandalism and theft.  It seems that this job is part detective, part counselor, part cop and part job. 
5. Accountant: In many respects, schools have a huge business side that requires organization and transparency.  There are so many procedures beyond simply "having a budget."   
6. Curriculum Specialist: while we have curriculum specialists, the principal still has to have a basic sense of where the learning is happening at school.  This includes finding training and resources for those who are struggling not just with curriculum but also with classroom management.
7. Staff Evaluator: a principal must build trust with staff when they are in need and yet play the role of judge with regards to whether they are rehired or placed on an Improvement Plan
8. Project Manager: the district and the state department constantly ask for the school to launch new programs and projects.  One year it's Blended Reading, another it's PLC and still another it is reorganizing the entire staff and schedule for the new four-hour ELD block.  Not only must the principal  launch and manage the programs, he or she has to sell these to a staff.
9. Public Relations Director: In an era dominated by anti-public education media, the principal has to play a role in changing public perception and talk about the positive things happening in a school.
10. Event Planner: At my school, the principal has planned assemblies, staff appreciation barbecues, a huge leadership conference and Student of the Month breakfasts

So, I look at the job description above and it seems to hit almost opposite skills sets.  A planner, organizer, money geek, salesperson, counselor, data diva.  It feels tiring just looking at it.  Yes, I know they can delegate the tasks and split the work between two of them.  Still, it feels like so much.  Meanwhile . . . 

I teach.  

Yes, sometimes I play the role of a counselor.  True, I have to deal with a few discipline issues.  Yet, they are all tied to the concept of helping students learn.  Aside from a few boring hours of paperwork a week, I typically get to do my job.  

I know it's easy to bust on administrators.  It's easy to find fault when the job description is as lengthy as the one listed above.  However, I feel fortunate when I think of the principals I have had.  They take care of the huge task of running a school so that I can be a teacher.  

When Joel had just turned three, he saw me pick up peanuts at the grocery store.  For the next ten minutes, he screamed "peanuts" at the top of his lungs.  Except, he couldn't pronounce the "t" sound and I quickly noticed how my own embarrassment became comic relief for the workers.

It became an LSD-styled flashback to the days when I worked at a supermarket;  pushing carts in the heat, listening to well-intentioned but mean octogenarians argue with me over invalid coupons and that gut-wrenching feeling of boredom when I would realize I still had six hours left on the shift.  I hated how fake I had to be. I hated how I had to negotiate store rules and procedures with "the customer is always right."

Case in point: a man got angry when a special needs worker stacked too few items in his grocery bag.  As he began to pay, he angrily muttered, "That's why they shouldn't hire retards."  I stopped him and refused to continue the transaction.  The Store Director wrote me up for "poor customer service," but to me that was the exact kind of service he needed.  Call it tough love.  He needed a reminder that he was not above the rest of humanity simply because he had more money.

*     *     *

Fast forward a decade.  I'm in a classroom now, in an environment that is rarely boring.  A student gets frustrated with his writing.  I'm explaining that he needs an attention-getter and he tells me that "this is what I'm going to write" would get most people's attention.  I grow impatient.  He turns angry and says, "fuck this" and sits down.

I let him sit there for awhile.  I think he expects me to send him to the office as evidence that "this type of behavior will not be tolerated."  School is designed with reverse customer service in mind - the teacher is always right.

Instead, though, I pull him aside and say, "I'm sorry I was getting impatient.  I want to see you master this, though."

The apology is disarming for him and he responds, "It was my fault.  I'm sorry I cussed at you."  I share with him what it has been like for me to deal with anger throughout my life.

"Does it ever go away?" he asked.

"I'm not sure there is a fix-all cure.  I know that for me being humble and admitting I'm wrong has been what's changed.  But it never leaves completely."

*     *     *

One of the things I love about teaching is that nobody has to be "always right."  Unlike the grocery store, I don't have to assume that I am a slave to the people handing me money in exchange for packaged products.  Unlike a management position, I don't have to assume that I have all the answers and I am right.

I get the chance to model a different approach in my classroom.  Sure, the school has a discipline grid and I'm sure in comes in handy for big things like fights and drugs and graffiti.  But in my classroom, I get to go off the grid and show students that humility and apologies and restoration of relationships can work better than simply "this person is always right."  I get the opportunity show that we are all flawed, walking through life with a limp, hoping and searching and screwing up along the way.

One would assume that I developed my philosophy of education based upon my own experiences as a student. Or perhaps I synethesized the philosophical books I read in college (one part Aristotle, another part Mills, add some Wittgenstein) or maybe it had to do with the influence of my mentor, Brad. Perhaps all of that is true. However, I am realizing that my philosophy of education began much sooner. On so many levels, it is a synthesis of what my own parents believe.

*      *      *

As a student, my dad was intelligent, but not necessarily a scholar. When his dad died, his family faced a tough economic situation. Thus, an education became a ticket to a more stable life. Although he de-emphasized grades, he never believed in "learning for the sake of learning." Instead, he would ask me the practical implications of knowledge. "How will you use that?" he would ask.

My dad was satisfied as long as we worked hard. He saw even the worst educational environments as a chance to build character. When I had an awful fourth grade teacher who would punish my twin brother together, because he couldn't tell us apart, my dad simply said, "The world is full of injustice. Someday you'll have someone equally unfair. Except he'll be your boss and you'll be stuck with him for more than a year. Do your work and eventually he'll respect you." My dad did not believe in rewarding us for our grades. Even when I brought home a straight-A's report card, his response was, "Regardless of the letters, I'm proud of how hard you worked."

From my dad, I retain the belief that learning can sometimes be boring. It can sometimes mean hard work. For all the talk of student engagement, sometimes students will need to edit papers or recheck their equations. It's not always fun. I also retain from this philosophy the notion that learning must be practical. It should ultimately change how people live.

*     *      *

My mom would take us on academic vacations. I didn't realize it at the time, but when we visited Washington D.C., she would slip into her art docent role and I fell in love with paintings and sculptures. For her, art was a door to understanding the human condition. Even when she didn't like a piece, she could tell me the cultural implications. "I know that Monet might seem feminine to you, but understand how bold it was. It's the idea that one's perceptions are as important as the objective reality."

From a young age, she instilled in us the love of reading. Instead of getting pizza coupons for reading a book, she would let us choose books as an allowance. While my dad saw learning as practical, my mom saw it as personal and even a bit philosophical. She viewed reading as a chance to think through the way one makes decisions - whether it was with the Berenstein Bears or in the conversation she and I had about Catcher in the Rye.

My mom used to tell me that she hoped I would be a "healthy, productive, moral, contributing member of society." I think she believed that education was a part of that picture - that art and books and stories could help me to develop on a moral level so that I could serve society.

From her, I learned to pursue learning with passion and almost reckless abandon. Thus when I participated in History Day, she never pushed me into it, but she would help me organize interviews and go on trips to the library. She would edit my writing, not to make it perfect, but so that I could find my voice.

If my dad taught me to see learning as hard work with practical pay-offs, I inherited from my mom the passionate, humanistic side of learning. While my dad taught me that education could lead to economic empowerment, my mom taught me that education could help a person serve their community.

*     *     *

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 having a pint with Javi and we're both thinking about the school year. "I think I'm realizing that I can only be their teacher. I can't save them. I can't always help them. I can't be their case worker. I can't be their father."

"So, what is your role?" I ask him.

"My role is to help them learn." He takes his role seriously, too. He knows them on a deep level, often playing the role of a counselor and a guide. Javi spends hours on his lesson plans, trying to meet the needs of each student as the move closer to language acquisition. His students participate in service projects and multimedia projects. And yet . . . he recognizes that he is not the center of their universe.

Parenting can be terrifying, because at this age, I am the center of their universe. Joel and Micah copy my moves, emulating whatever their dad does. If I say "holy crap," Micah will be sanctifying poop for weeks. On the flip side, if I am quick to apologize and even quicker to forgive, they copy that as well.

I never know, as a parent, what is normal. Is it normal for a three year old to say, "I'm not going to play with you Mr. Poopy Guy?" Is it normal for an almost-five year old to get really whiny all of a sudden when he doesn't get his way? What about cognitive development? Joel catches onto phonics right now, but should he be reading? He has a solid concept of number sense, but should we already bust out equations?

When I'm a teacher, I am not a parent. This means I don't have the heavy burden of feeling responsible for everything that every child does. Ultimately, I teach someone else's child. And for all the talk of holistic education, I am still responsible for one part of a child's life - his or her education. I am not responsible for hot meals or clothes or worrying about social maturity.

Moreover, as a teacher, I am an expert on a particular age group. I know thirteen and fourteen year olds really well. It's not like having a six month old and a three year old and a five year old. I can predict reactions pretty well. I can understand the humor. I can sense, almost intuitively, what is wrong when a child comes to class all mopey.

Not being their dad has another positive side. I'm less of an authority figure. While I would like to believe that children always have an open dialog with their parents, I understand that they are more likely to feel judged. So, as a teacher, I am often a safe person for a student to talk to without feeling judged.

I love being a parent, but one of the things I love about being a teacher is that I don't have to be a parent to my students.

I don't enjoy most contemporary authors for the simple reasons that they are long-winded and preachy.  Take Dickens.  I get it, Chuck, debtor's prison sucks, but do you have to make your case in such a one-sided, heavy-handed novel?  Or Thoreau.  Yes, your pond is pretty and all, but you don't have to turn every nature walk into a platitude about enlightenment in an industrial era.

I enjoy Mark Twain, because he is able to see from multiple perspectives.  I like his raw cynicism.  It makes it more realistic when hope breaks through.  I enjoy his ability to see every social institution honestly, because he has an honest view of humanity.  I don't get the sense, as I read his novels, that he is trying to reform me.  He's the anti-Tolstoy.

I'd love to have a chat with Twain about education.  Sometimes I get really tired, and I mean physically exhausted, when I read the commentary on education in the papers and the magazines.  Each pundit has an idea on how to move forward, with no thought about what we're leaving behind.

I rarely mention this, but I sometimes miss elements of the one-room school house.  True it was a little paternalistic, but there was a community.  The, subjects blended together.  Students helped one another, despite the age difference.  We were a social unit, rooted in our rural community, an extension of the local politic. I'm not suggesting it was perfect (our teacher thought that a paddle was better than a one-on-one conversation) just that in moving forward, we left a few good ideas behind.

*     *     *

So, I'm having a pint with Paul the Pre-Industrial Poet. I tell him, "People assume that I am a Progressive Educator.  I'm not much into -isms, progressivism included.  I just want students to learn to think well about life."

"If that's progressive, I'm a bit surprised.  It seems like that's an old idea.  Socrates?"

"I'm not so sure.  It seems that Socrates would have liked the current factory model.  When I read The Republic, I'm struck by the militarism of the ideal education.  Not only do the children and the parents have no voice in education, the military seems to be raising the children in a strict disciplinarian framework."

"It's scary, huh?" he adds.

We talk about Tolstoy and Dickens and the reform-oriented factory educationists and how it all connects to this idea of the society forming the perfect child. We talk about the danger of treating children as talking points in arguments about education reform.

After awhile, though, he takes a deep breath, chugs from his pint and adds, "I think Socrates says a lot about the perfect education because he has to prove that he is providing Athens with something better, something much more Spartan in nature. But my guess is that he would have hated the system he proposed.  When I read the Socratic dialogs, I get the sense that Socrates would want a conversation - a conversation outside the walls of a factory.  He'd want kids engaging in their world, asking and discovering."

"I think he'd want mystery and paradox instead of this new factory system where teaching is an assembly line."

I think that's what I want for my own students and that's what Paul wants for his.  I wonder if we're both just putting words into Plato's mouth.  Neither of us are reformers, really.  Yes, we have pencils in our classrooms, but neither of us are interested in developing some new, cutting edge system.  We just want our students to think well about life, with the help of a pencil or two.

Christy grabbed a bunch of green stuff from here and turned it into something amazing

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

If "we need to talk" is a phrase that can cause panic instantaneously, "hey, check this out," can cause me to smile in an instant.

Today, a student pulled me aside, "Hey check this out," he said and handed me his head phones. I listened to the background song, now finalized, and watched the poetry he had created in iMovie. The cool thing about independent projects is that aren't all that independent after all. Students share constantly and I get to be a part of it.

We're in the last two weeks of the school year and in the precise time that students should be slacking off and avoiding homework, they are taking home parts of this project, sharing ideas and resources and working hard.

I need these comments.  At the end of the year, I am tired and raw.  If I'm not careful, I spiral into a self-doubt tailspin.  I will chastise myself for not making more of a difference or being too distant or not working as hard at creating engaging lessons.  I compare the year to this invisible ideal and it can feel depressing.  But when a child says, "Hey, check this out," it is as close as I'll get in the school year to saying, "Thanks for teaching me."

As I walk around the room, another student calls me over. "Hey Mr. Spencer, look at this website," a girl shows me. The site is still a bit skeletal right now, but she has already begun the process of uploading audio interviews with immigrants in her community.

One could assume that the students are worried about their grades, but I told them that the all get full credit for doing the project. Being standards-based grading, most students have already proved mastery of the standards (which is a myth in itself - whoever really masters a language or a medium?)

One could also assume that they simply want approval or encouragement. Don't we all, though? Don't we all want a moment of validation?  Some sort of signal that we're doing alright?

I have my own theory about the cause of "hey, check this out." I think students reach a point where they are genuinely excited about their work and "hey, check this out," is as close as they'll get to doing a happy dance or screaming from the top of a mountain.

Joel asked me what kind of tree oil grows on. When I told him that we take it from the earth and that it is not something grown, he literally gasped. "Why would we feed cars something that doesn't grow?" he asked.

Joel and Micah live in a world of science.  Not necessarily lab sets or white coats or any of that, but in the concrete reality before their own eyes.  I, on the other hand, am often thinking about things like purpose and life and the meaning of the cosmos.  I have a huge space for paradox and mystery.

Still, science reminds me that life is a vapor and I refuse to waste it on Dancing with the Stars. I believe in God and I believe in the Bible - not always in the historicity of every book. The book was never written with the chief goal of moment-by-moment accuracy, but with accuracy to the essence of story and it's the story that has given me a lens to understand life - or at least come to terms with what I don't understand.

The other night I felt like I knew biology. Micah stuck his hand in the fish bowl and Joel tried to push him away and in the process, the bowl crashed down and the fish died. All of this happened while I was trying to get rid of an a bunch of ants in the kitchen.  Micah was trying to discover life.  Joel was trying to protect life.  Both of them caused death.  Both of them cried.

Sometimes I wonder if the real reason I bought Joel and Micah a fish is that it provided training wheels for understanding mortality. Some day our dog will die and they'll be crushed. Some day I'll die and they'll be crushed as well.

Some would say that it was "just a fish." Perhaps it was not so tragic since it was in a fish bowl. But then again, I'm on Twitter, which might be the most human form of fishbowl around. And unlike the fish, I look for the fish bowl voluntarily, because I value safety and transparency more than wild adventures.

Some would say that the fish was incapable of emotion. Others would just as easily say we're incapable of understanding an animal emotion. If we can't get one another on a human level, then how in the hell do we assume that we understand what's going on in the mind of a fish?

I take a glimpse at Christy as she holds Brenna. Smaller isn't dumber. A lack of language isn't a lack of intelligence. Having babies taught me this. Love isn't confined to intelligence or utility.

So, I end the evening by mopping the floor and killing the ants. I take no pleasure in killing ants. They come for survival. I kill for convenience. They were here first. And they are amazing creatures. Sure, they are a little hung up on taking orders, but so am I. Sometimes you have to conform to survive in a colony.

*     *     *

I will teach science next year.  According to the AEPA, I have a ton of language knowledge. (I created a blog to remind myself of how little I really know about words), but I am just average in science.  I'm not sure how they figure out what I know about science.  Honestly, I'm feeling like a neophyte scientist.  I'm rediscovering the joy of the subject and my teachers are three and five years old.  

If Joel could teach my science class next year, I would let him.  I would have him take the students to the playground and observe and ask and test and observe again and question again.  I'd have him teach the students that the lesson isn't over after they have completed a lab report.  

During testing today, when all the students had finished and we had to sit silently for another hour and a half, I sketched this.  It's a picture of my PLN.  I'm still not entirely sure if I know what a Personal Learning Network is, but here's mine. Click on it to see it more in-depth.  I ran out of space to add the other bloggers I read (Joe Bower, for example) - I just chose fit in who I could.

"Mr. Spencer, you can't call this a typo if it's a written draft. It's just a mistake," the student explained.  He's right.  We're all learning language - even the teacher.  In inform him that he will still need to work through his errors before he types it up.

"Spell check will fix it," he explains.  He has a point.  However, I just read a paper mentioning "just barley."  Apparently, it's the grain most committed to social justice.  I've read several papers mentioning "be cause."  It has a sort-of activist tinge to it.  If one can simply "be the cause" that changes the world.  Part business sloganeering and part propaganda.  Somehow Frist gets past the spell check.  Who knew the former House Majority leader would be important enough to avoid the spell-check red-line?

At one time, I cringed at every typo, expecting a publishable text from every junior high student.  Why couldn't they simply revise it until it reached a level of mastery? Perhaps it's because "mastery" is a myth. Even a language geek has to learn to "ditch that word."

Once I came to terms with the messy reality of typos, I learned to laugh a little.  Yes, I will correct the preposition, but I will also have an odd mental picture when I read about "Disney in Ice." I'm imagining Mickey in a shot of vodka or perhaps a cyrogenically frozen Goofy.

Ultimately, I grew to appreciate the typos.  Don't get me wrong, I celebrate growth in language development.  However, I think the typos have changed me as a person.  I'm more patient with writing.  I'm less of a language snob.  I realize that we're all stumbling in our desire to express our voice.  There's something refreshing about working with people who don't have the thick veneer of professionalism.

Typos remind me of the imperfections of humanity and the notion that we are on a journey toward clarity. As the year progresses and the typos fade, I get a chance to see growth. In a profession where I often cannot see tangible results, I am encouraged by the changes in the typos. For all the complaining that "digital kids can't write," I find that student typos diminish. It becomes an extended metaphor of my belief in brokenness and redemption.

This might be a bit early in the blog to do this, but I'm curious what my readers (which I realize is a humble size) enjoy about teaching.  I'd love to read your comments.

This blog post was based on an activity I did with my class last week.


As we shift into an industrial age, it seems that we are more intimate than ever with technology.  While one used to spend the day connected to the land, toiling in hopes for a better crop, we now spend the days connected to the assembly line, a mere cog in the machinery. With that in mind, I had students write letters to personified technology.

At first, the class seemed skeptical, but over time they warmed up to the idea. Many of them chose to write multiple letters.  Something about the personal tone of a friendly letter allowed the students to think more creatively about the pros and cons of technology.  While we have analyzed media before, I noticed that the letter format encouraged my students to think deeper about the human side of technology in society.


Dear Automobile,

You will never replace the horse.  Although you might be faster, I can't imagine that mankind will choose convenience over relationships.  Besides, our city might be crowded, but where would you possibly need to go that you couldn't access on horse back?

Sincerely,
Mildred


Dear Light Bulb,

You have replaced the sun in providing warmth and illumination.  Your small filiment might be weak, but you have already managed to fade our sense of seasons.  I stood outside last night and stared at the stars and the universe felt small and manageable. Although I appreciate you, I wish you would take a few nights off so that I could have an evening of awe.

Sincerely,
Robert


Dear Telegraph,

Maybe I am too hopeful, but I think you have the ability to spread information instantly around the world.  I'm hoping we can have a more democratic world.  Perhaps there is something we can learn from other countries and they can learn from us.

Sincerely,
Sarah

"In the real world, we don't block things like YouTube," a teacher laments.  She's right.  That is, if we define "real world" as the world outside of the classroom, but I'm a little more skeptical if she means "in other jobs."

"Can you imagine going to work and having every available tool locked away?"  Again, she has a point.

However, I am often struck by the fact that I have more technological autonomy in teaching than I would in most professions.  For example, in many professions, they not only block YouTube, but also personal e-mail and all social networking.  My dad explained that to increase productivity, his employer blocked any site connected to fantasy football (for what it's worth, my fantasies have never revolved around football). If know a few colleagues who would literally die if they couldn't access fantasy football on their preps.  Okay, figuratively and not literally.

Similarly, in most workplaces that I've seen, the employees have limited choices on software and almost never have the option of changing an entire operating system.  If my friend Quinn just decided one day that he'd run his desktop on Ubuntu, the tech team would storm his cubicle and he'd pack his belongings up in a box.

Although I get frustrated with blocked sites, the reality is that I get to make most of the technological decisions regarding my own classroom.  Case in point: four years ago, the school had decade-old computers laying on the ground, slowly awaiting their fate at the recycling center. I convinced the principal to let me use the computers in my classroom.  Running both Puppy Linux and Xubuntu on the machines, I essentially set up internet machines that could also use AbiWord.

From there, I created Google Accounts and students began doing everything cloud-based. I set up the physical configuration, customized the image for the operating system and found my own cloud-based system that enabled my students to use technology as a learning tool.

I can't imagine many workplaces offering an employee that kind of autonomy.

I walk out into the crowded school yard. A few of the kids still call it "playground," a reminder that they can, indeed, play at least once a day. I weave in and out of groups, throwing a couple of bricks on the basketball court, eating a few Takis and marveling at student cell phones (or more accurately miniature computers). Our school blocks myspace (still more popular with our kids than facebook) and yet most of them are accessing it on their cell phones.

A socially awkward student asks me if maybe we have it all wrong with Star Trek. I call him socially awkward, but that's not it at all. It's that youth culture is awkward for him. He's a geek and he is able to pick up on my geek vibe.

"Maybe they're just colonizing. They say they want to go where no man has gone before. But that's wrong on two accounts - split infinitives and the fact that people were already there."

"But the phrase is 'man' and those are all aliens."

"Still, they are taking it over to colonize.  Sure, they say they want to maintain order, but what do you really think is fueling the United Federation of Planets?"

This shifts into a discussion of anti-feminism in the show (using "man" instead of human) until I have to leave and tell a couple of boys to quit throwing rocks. Minutes later, a group of kids want me to talk like Hank on King of the Hill. (Who knew goofy accents would come in so handy in junior high?)

I enjoy being out on duty. I know, I know, I'm supposed to complain about how cold it gets, but let's be honest, I live in Phoenix. It's rarely actually freezing. I could complain about how duty takes me away from more valuable things like assessing student work, but I'm convinced that time on duty is actually a bit of a gift.

It's out here that I get to see the students in a more natural setting. I get a chance to ask questions, shoot a basketball, debate Star Trek or talk about smart phones. It's out on duty that I get to find out who has a crush on whom and which students are BFF's (I wouldn't mind ditching that word). I'm able to recapture a human, relational side that can sometimes be missing in the stale air of a classroom. I get to see them in another light - a light that is not created by flickering fluorescents.

I'm not sure when the belief in magic fades from a child.  The world my sons inhabit is full of magic.  Joel calls the dirt magic dust, because when he adds water, it creates mud "out of nothing."  Micah calls the swing set magical, because it can take him to the clouds if he just swings high enough.  At some point, they'll trade in some of the magic for some logic - maybe even for the quadratic equation.

I'm not sure when adults lose their belief in poetry.  Perhaps they read ee cummings and it doesn't make sense and they feel embarrassed for liking Robert Frost.  Or maybe they leave it to the experts who order drinks I can't pronounce from indie coffee shops where they can craft free verse about neo-colonialism.  Or maybe we lose the belief in magic and trade it in for some logic, replacing poetry for more productive prose.

I quit writing poetry in high school.  I started writing poetry again after my first year of teaching.  We were studying the topic of immigration and so I let the students do a "United by Borders" project where they described feeling like a foreigner or facing a border in their lives.  One boy wrote a poem called "I Hope With a Limp," and for all the misspellings (which, incidentally is always a hard word for me to spell) and a few trite cliches, it was profound because he was able to express how his soul felt about his brother's death.

My students taught me that poetry doesn't exist to impress people.  The goal isn't getting published or being noticed.  Poetry exists because there is often no other language to tell the deeper stories of one's life.  It's why Lamentations is so powerful and why the first chapter of Genesis is lyrical poetry rather than scientific cosmology. I had written stacks of poems and dissected them like cadavars - and that's what they were, dead, lifeless only because they had never had life in the first place.

My students taught me the life of poetry.

The first time I ever "attended" an #edchat session, I felt like a lost soul in a crowded cathedral.  People knew the rituals, the language, the tokens and totems. I jumped in awkwardly, tossing about my limited knowledge on tech-related issues.  To my surprise, I had people comment on my tweets.  Advance.  Retweet.  Wait for awhile and read.

On some level, I felt like a counterfeit or a misfit.  I love technology.  No, I love the learning that can be accomplished with technology.  But I also cringe at the way that technology can dehumanize.  Recent disasters remind me that we are hooked on energy, drinking in oil like a Red Bull or a Monster.  So, I expected judgment when I tossed out a few technology criticisms.  Again, I experienced comments - intelligent, respectful comments.

For me, #edchat is a reminder that I'm not crazy.  It fills a gap that is often missing in the staff lounge.  Here, I find a combination of people who agree with me (I feel affirmed) and yet I also experience the diversity of divergent viewpoints.  True, it is messy and chaotic and I sometimes feel like a wallflower, but that's pretty much me in most large-group social situations.

I can't think of any other profession that has the equivalent of #edchat.  I don't imagine that tax accountants meet one evening a week to chat about the philosophy of numbers.  I can't imagine that engineers have conversations about the value of i-beams.  They might, but I'm skeptical of it.

I realize that this might seem absurd to list this as one of my reasons for loving teaching, but there is something deeply satisfying about being surrounded by so many people who are passionate about learning and openly sharing their insights with teachers from around the world.

"Why does God allow kids to die of cancer but then a guy like Osama bin Ladin can stay alive?" a boy asks as we work on a mural before school.  It's a taboo subject, I suppose, and I think he wants to see if I'll share my thoughts on faith and God and existential quandaries.

"Maybe he's holding out hope for the man," a girl answers.

"If I was God, I would have gotten rid of him by now," he answers.

"You're not God," she reminds him.

"Maybe that's a good thing," he answers.

"Do you think it's possible that he's not evil?  I mean, is it possible he's just really, really confused?" she asks.  "I mean, what if he thinks he's doing the right thing?"

One thing I love about middle school is that they venture into areas of politics and current events that are socially unacceptable.  I can't imagine having that conversation at a "meet and greet" or a cocktail party or a church potluck.  I can't imagine talking like that at a wedding reception or a doctor's office or at the mechanics while I'm waiting for an oil change, because I am too pansy to do it myself.

By my age, people have learned to avoid religion and politics.  They've learned to abandon the hard questions, because, quite honestly, life is busy and difficult enough on its own.  By my age, people seem to have found a system of thinking and even if it doesn't fit well enough, it is comfortable enough that one forgets about it most of the time. So, like Bloods and Crips, we wear our red and blue state ideology and learn to filter events through a political platform.

In teaching middle school, though, I get the sense that many of them are asking hard questions about their world for the first time ever.  They are still excited about mystery and paradox and conflict.  They don't find metaphors quite so trite or unpractical.  They are open to new questions and for the scary reality that there might not always be the answers.

I have a pair of Kirkland jeans that I bought at Cosco for about ten bucks.  They are the most comfortable, un-sttylish, unpretentious pair of pants I have ever owned.  (Yet another reason to be a Cosco fan boy - the same place I buy jeans is the only place in town I could theoretically buy a four gallon jar of mayonnaise, though I'm not sure anyone should ever consume that much mayonnaise in a lifetime)

Casual Fridays have a calming effect.  Although I have heard teachers complain that denim-dressed teachers are a call to anarchy, I find that it does the opposite.  I breath easier.  I smile more.  I am less likely to play the power card when conflict occurs.  Don't get me wrong, I think a shirt and tie are important (see my last post) but jeans make things a little more horizontal - and I think being a teacher is both horizontal and vertical. The shirt and tie reminds me of my responsibilities as a teacher.  It's a visual reminder that what I am doing is vital.  Denim does the opposite, reminding me that I am not the center of my students' universe.

Walk into my class and it is apparent that everything I have is bigger and nicer than the students.  Student desks can hardly fit a hefty kid.  The teacher's desk is ginormous. The students sit in plastic chairs, while I get one of those cushy chairs. Something happens on Casual Fridays though.  All of a sudden, we are closer to equal.  I am reminded of our shared humanity.  I'm not "one of them" by any means, but in wearing similar clothing, I am reminded that we have more in common than one first assumes.

It's no accident that students open up a bit more on Casual Fridays.  It's on these days that I'll hear a story of abuse or poverty.  Without the barrier of professionalism, I become a little more approachable.  I listen better.  I am not as task-driven.  I love my denim days, because I get to recapture the casual, human side that is often hidden in such a business-centered, professional learning environment.

I sneak into my parents' bedroom and watch my dad pick out a tie.  He holds each one up to his shirt and slacks (a term I still use, despite the fact that it makes me sound seventy) and finally makes his decision.  I observe the ceremony, confused by the norms guiding grown-up clothing decisions.  It never dawns on me that this is his uniform.  I never consider that he has to wear this.  Instead, I believe that he chooses a shirt and tie because work must be a special occasion.

Somewhere around six or seven, he teaches me to tie my own tie, informing me that clip-ons are for guys with pocket protectors who think short sleeve dress shirts are acceptable to wear with ties.  Knowing almost intuitively that he is no slave to fashion, I make a mental note that if my dad says it's unacceptable, it's probably unacceptable.  I practice the process in front of the mirror until I can tie a half-Windsor.  

So fast forward a couple of decades into my first year of teaching.  I find myself imitating my dad as I pick out a shirt and tie.  As I stand in front of the mirror, I get the sense that I'm grown up now and I feel a certain mix of pride and fear.  I feel as though I'm playing dress up, but it's not pretend any more.  Holy crap, I'm in charge.  There's no one to call if something goes wrong.  That's my classroom and I'm the leader.  

It strikes me that the shirt and tie is decorative.  After all, I doubt that there is any real function in having one's neck restrained.  It is a sign of professionalism and more importantly, a signal that one is attending a special occasion. It gets me thinking of this notion of a special occasion, of attending something that is important.  I wear a shirt and tie to weddings and funerals and interviews and fancy churches where they still have stained-glass windows and read Bible verses in old English.  Why can't learning fit into the category of "special occasion?"

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe a shirt and tie make me a better teacher.  I don't think "kids respond differently" to a man in denim.  I don't believe in the notion of running a classroom like one would run a business.  Still, I love the fact that I get to wear a shirt and tie to work.  I love the fact that it's a quick signal each morning that I am attending something that is important.  

Note: this post was inspired largely by a post from Look At My Happy Rainbow, a blog that I enjoy. If you haven't checked it out, you should give it a whirl.

I know that it is common at the younger grades for students to draw pictures of their teachers and secretly place them on the desk.  I remember drawing pictures in the primary grades and feeling like a rock start when a teacher would staple a picture in the "personal area" above their desk.  It was a sign that I mattered, not just as a student, but as a person.

Six years ago, when I began teaching middle school, I was surprised that this process continues.  Often, it is a little more direct and a little more awkward.  Feeling torn between "I still want to be a kid" and "treat me like a grownup," seventh and eighth graders stumble over how to offer a creative gift.  Often, the picture is accompanied by a self-deprecating warning label of "I'm not much of an artist" or "it's just a picture."

It's not "just" a picture and I've never met anyone who is "not much of an artist"  (only people who haven't found their artistic outlet in life).

My pictures are admittedly a little different than the primary grades.  I might get a very political or social-centric drawing.  Other times, I get my name in graffiti-styled urban letters. Sometimes they are daring enough to spell my first name.  Sometimes they misspell my last name.  Regardless, there is something slightly ironic about the words "Mr. Spencer" spelled out in a big, colorful tagging bomb. Often, the artists are los traviesos who I'll see sitting in solitary confinement during lunch detention.  It's almost an unspoken message of "Look past the external behavior and you'll see that there is more to me than my reputation."

Sometimes I will glance over at a student staring at the wall of pictures instead of joining in a class discussion.  Although I will interrupt the daydreaming to refocus the student, I feel honored that my desk-space has become a mini-museum. You'd be surprised by how elated junior high kids get when I hang up student art work. There is something powerful in seeing one's creativity in a tangible form not only right before your eyes, but right before everyone's eyes.

I didn't always like grading, perhaps because I didn't understand the purpose of it.  I would pull out a Counting Crows album, lock myself in the classroom and attempt to quantify student work.  Although I didn't read every paper, I graded each one with a check-mark system.  It felt judgmental and arbitrary.  It was.  It felt disconnected from instruction.  It was. It felt like a chore.  It was.

I've grown to love grading (or more accurately, I've grown to love assessment) because I see it a little differently). For me, the shift was philosophical, when I asked myself, "What do students need to know after they have finished an assignment?"  I began to shift from a focus on work completion to student learning and from judging work to informing students.  Once this shift occurred, I began to view assessment as a key component in planning future lessons.  Eventually, I also began to see how assessment is actually a chance to provide individual instruction.

What I mean is this: I see teaching as a dialog.  At times, I ask and students answer and other times students ask and I answer. It is an ongoing conversation - whether the topic is the Cold War or functional text or solving algebraic equations.  This time of grading is a chance for me to participate in the conversation individually.  What begins in solitude will later be an individual, face-to-face conference.  But really, even though the student is not physically present, there is a sense that this is a chance to be one-on-one with a student.

In the process of assessing student work, I get to know my students on a personal level.  I have the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the beauty of their minds.  It is a deeply relational activity, where students trust me to help them figure out how to think well about life.  I'm not simply grading an essay.  I'm listening to a student's voice, helping the student think deeper about his or her ideas and learning to articulate it in a way that is more accurate.

Everybody wants to be known and I feel fortunate that I get the opportunity every day to know students through the process of assessment.

At one time, Flaming Hot Cheetoh's qualified as a low-income staple food.  Red-handed students would wipe the artificially-colored debris on the walls, tables and desks of my classroom.  I'd look over at a student whose uniform had turned pink and I wouldn't feel quite so bad about a coffee-stained dress shirt.

Then it stopped.  I would glance at the empty walls and clean tables and it felt sterile. What had happened? Had Cheetoh etiquette changed?  Or had something another snack food taken its place as the low-income staple food? Could it be possible that students, recognizing the health crisis nationwide, had chosen green leafy vegetables and fresh fruit?  Not exactly.

Somehow, the Taki craze went viral and Hot Cheetoh's lost their trendy power.  They still existed, but were relegated to the recently uncool and not yet vintage status assigned to Chingy, Cumbia Kings and Phat Farm.  Being horribly untrendy, I initially avoided their offers of free Takis.

Finally, a student said, "You can't knock it until you try it."

Another student answered, "That's a bad phrase.  What if you applied that to crystal meth?"

"This isn't crystal meth," he answered.  So I tried Takis and I have to admit that they are tasty.  I have yet to buy a bag.  However, I don't have to purchase anything when students offer me a free handful every day at lunch.

*      *      *

I was raised in a house where equality and individuality were two of our most cherished values.  If we had a piece of cake, one person would divide it equally and then the other person would choose the piece.  My brother and I would painstakingly count each M & M to guarantee neither person had more.  If we could bought a fancy electronic cooking weight we would have (you know, the kind drug dealers use).

On the playground, if a kid had food and another child asked for a bite, the typical answer was "go buy your own."  Perhaps it was our neighborhood.  Or maybe we were just being patriotic in a Cold War era.  However, we didn't share well.  So, when I see my students offering Takis to anyone available, I'm reminded that there are things my students understand that I missed in my own upbringing - free Takis and a free lesson on sharing.

photo credit

Sometimes I'll listen to NPR on the way to work.  I'll hear some depressing news about war or genocide or the popularity of reality tv shows and I'll think to myself that the universe is too dark.  I feel it too deeply.  So, I'll turn on some Sufjan Stevens or maybe Damien Rice, but it only serves to anesthetize me for awhile. I walk into the hallway feeling heavy.  Maybe the students sense this.  Perhaps they're oblivious.

Inevitably, a few of them will call my name.  For a brief moment, I get to experience what it felt like for Norm on Cheers to be in a place where everybody knows your name.  Not quite like a rock star or even a B-list celebrity.  But I'm known.

As I walk by, the students will greet me with a fist-bump. You know, the type that caused such a controversy when Michelle Obama proved her epic hipness before all of America and neo-cons secretly pondered whether it was a handshake for a secret socialist society.

At first, I accepted this awkwardly, assuming that this was merely adolescent mockery of those in charge.  I would shake their hands instead and they would laugh at me and not with me.  After a few weeks, I accepted that the fist bump is a seventh-grade version of a hug.  At an age where they need a visual demonstration of acceptance and respect, the fist bump serves the purpose.  It's an unspoken social contract that says, "No matter what happens, I'll still respect you and you'll still respect me."

I realize that it looks really juvenile, but it's powerful.

I've worked in the "real world," and it is often a surprisingly "fake world" after all.  People stand around the copy machine and talk about Dancing with the Stars.  They whine about management and gossip about co-workers.  What they don't get a chance to do is share stories.

When I teach, I hear stories - tragic stories, funny stories, celebratory stories and often bland stories from neophyte narrative makers.  I am immersed in plot and character and often I get the chance to draw out the theme.

So, yesterday a kid comes to me and says, "Did you know that we have birds in Phoenix?"

"Where did that come from?"

"This morning I had the window open and I heard an orchestra of chirping."  He smiles at his use of the word "orchestra."  I'm impressed, but I'm more impressed by his ability to listen than anything else.

"Where do all the dead birds go?  I mean, that's a lot of birds and they have a short life.  So, why don't we see dead birds all over the place?"

It starts with a conversation about dead birds and ends with a story of why he doesn't have air conditioning.  It's a painful talk about his dad leaving state to find a job in New Mexico and why that means they don't have money to fix their air conditioning.  The narrative is choppy, but the story is a gift.

One of the reasons I love teaching.

Even though my school is considered "poor" (though not really poor, because the really poor kids are the ones working in the factories) more than half of them have mini-tablets.  Apparently the mere possession of a mini-tablet is a divisive issue on campus. The first crowd hates the mini-tablets and the second group loves them.  We'll call one group the haters and the others the hopers. Not surprisingly, today a verbal battle broke out in the staff lounge (or as I like to call it the "staff vent and gripe location")

"All they do is write shorthand messages. It's ruining grammar.  It's ruining poetry.  Some day we'll replace rhyme with free verse and all Hell will break lose. We'll have poets who don't even capitalize letters."

"At least they're spending their free time writing," Mr. Brown responds.

Another teacher jumps into the conversation, "I had two kids throw wads of paper.  One kid threw a paper airplane.  Do you know how dangerous that is?  I don't want to get sued when a kid pokes an eye out or gets an infection from a paper cut. I never have projectile issues when I teach with slates."

"So incorporate airplanes into a lesson on velocity. Who knows, maybe this is what will start the first glider that will lead to human aviation."

"I will do my best to add human aviation to my lesson on the War of 1812. Seriously, today when I'm lecturing, I see a whole row of them doing origami."

"If they weren't doing origami, wouldn't they be just as checked out?  Their issue might be that lecturing is a bad strategy for them."

The first teacher joins the discussion again, "I don't know how many times I've had to take away a mini-tablet because a student was playing hang man. And seriously?  Hang man?  Can children's games get any more violent?"

"So, design your own classroom activity that can incorporate student mini-tablets. You are taking away a tool that might revolutionize learning because a few people use it wrong."

*     *      *

The truth is that I'm in the middle on this one.  Yes, we can use mini-tablets. However, they are not the fix-all for education.  The truth is that multitasking is not a good thing.  Novelty is decent, but fades quickly.  Mini-tablets feed the need for novelty, multitasking and entertainment.  Sometimes deep critical thinking runs against the mini-tablet as a medium.  So, looking toward it as a "revolutionary device" is a bit extreme.  Sometimes a kid just needs a book - a really interesting, deep-thinking, fascinating story.

On the flip side, mini-tablets have some great potential uses.  Banning them for classroom management reasons is absurd.  After all, who would ban chalk because students have been known to bang erasers and create dust clouds?  The real issue is one of fear.  Teachers are afraid that they won't be able to keep students interested in the subject. It's a bit humiliating to lose out to a sheet of paper.

So, I'm hoping for this: that students will find philosophical conversations more interesting than hang man.  My hope is that they will use mini-tablets to send messages and manage information as they engage in problem-solving.  My hope is that I will see the mini-tablet not as the hero or the villain of education, but as another tool - one that should not be banned, but also one that does not belong in every lesson.

I have a friend Ed who invites educators to chat with him through our pen pal networks.  The conversation is deep, but sometimes the viewpoint is too similar.  A few hundred people will join in and say essentially the same thing.  It's not that I learn anything different, but that I get a new vocabulary for the nuances of what I already believe.

I also have about a hundred plogs that I read.  I get the journal updates and flip through stacks of paper.  Sometimes I hold my binder and it feels heavy.  Pages go unread and I feel guilty.  I scan them quickly, attempting to extract a new idea.  Extract.  I'm pulling apart another's thoughts with reckless abandon, clear-cutting the nuances of language in my pursuit of knowledge.

I'm holding my heavy binder one morning when Mr. Brown walks in.  "How many pages are in that thing?" he asks.

"I subscribe to over a hundred plogs?"

"I admire you.  I can't read that many.  I stick to ten."

"What about developing your PLN?" I ask him.

"I'd rather have a deep conversation with five to ten teachers than try and speed-talk in a crowded room of a hundred.  I'm much more of a wallflower."

"Don't you feel that you are missing something?"

"Yes, but I would be missing something if I had a hundred plogs that I read.  The difference is that, when I read ten plogs, I know the people.  I've shared a pint with most of them.  Our conversations go deeper.  Sure, I miss out on learning the latest pencil developments, but that's a small sacrifice for depth."

"Can't you just subscribe to more and read less?"

"More options don't always mean better choices.  I'll stick to the tiny community I have and limit my numbers deliberately. I do the same with books.  I read about a book a month and I subscribe to only one education journal.  I keep my PLN small on purpose."

It has me wondering if maybe my PLN is too big.  Perhaps I need to step back a little from the crowded room and move closer to sharing a pint.

I've begun asking myself the following questions:

• Are blogs supposed to have an expiration date? If they don't have an expiration date, is there ever a sense of closure to them?  Is there ever a story arc?  
• What is my niche?  Is there anything I offer to the blogging world that isn't said more eloquently and accurately than me?  
• What is this blog about, anyway?  Is it simply a collage of random thoughts?  Or is there some unifying thing that holds it together?

I've played around with names: Education Rethink, Indie Teacher, Teaching Unmasked, Musings from a Not-So-Master Teacher.  

I've thought of renaming it as something broad and bland like "John Spencer's Blog."  Deep stuff, huh?  

I've thought of scrapping this blog altogether and trying something new and specific (perhaps going completely multimedia or doing only Musings in Metaphor or something like that).  

I have no intention of quitting writing.  I don't even have any intention of quitting blogging (just started Ditch that Word and I'm having a blast with Pencil Integration).  I'm just not sure what to do with this blog.

I'd love some feedback on what to do with this blog.

I'll be taking the next month off as I think through this blog, other blogs and what exactly I want my online experience to be.

Dear School Board Members:

I appreciate your desire to keep our students safe from bullying, disruptions and "anything that gets in the way of learning." However, I am concerned that your efforts have not gone far enough. You banned the Pen Pal networks and now mobile pencil devices. I get it, those tablets were very disruptive, what with kids sending shorthand messages and all.

At first, I had a negative reaction. After all, as a teacher, I would deal with the behavior rather than banning the medium. If a student is disruptive, I have a conversation with the individual rather than punishing the whole class. I've even been known to get introspective and ask myself why the student was disengaged. Can I incorporate something different in the lesson plans?

However, this approach is much more efficient and fool-proof. But why stop at mobile devices and Pen Pal networks? I heard a student insult another student on Thursday. Perhaps it's time to ban speaking in school? I've noticed a ton of students disrupting class by blowing their noses. Is it time to ban tissues? Chair-tipping has also become both disruptive and dangerous.  When will we learn?  Will it take a student's cracked skull to teach us to ban chairs?

At recess, I noticed students kicking balls around.  One team refused to share the ball with the other team.  Perhaps this is potential gang behavior?  Bullying? Or maybe, like other schools throughout the nation, we just ban recess (or as I like to call it child-centered anarchy) altogether.

My issue is not with your banning of items, but with the fact that you have not gone far enough.

Sincerely:

Tom Johnson

*     *     *

Okay, I lied at the end.  I wasn't all that sincere after all. Then again, I'm not sure they are all that sincere when they speak of developing "holistic life-long learners."

"I'm thinking of quitting the Pen Pal networks, Paul."

"I think it's a mistake.  It's imperfect, I understand.  But you're imperfect.  Hell, sometimes your verb tense is imperfect, do you abandon that?"

"It's just that it's become a place of games.  Join my Agribusiness.  Engage in organized crime with me.  Tell me where you are and we'll play four square together.  I joined the Pen Pal networks to engage in a conversation about learning."

"Do you want to know the people your so-called PLN?"

"On some level, yes."

"Then you have to play.  Think about it for a moment.  In your neighborhood, do children meet together and sip tea or do they play first?"

"They play."

"Why is that?"

"It could be emotional immaturity. Or it could be that they learn something from each other.  Maybe cooperation.  Maybe decision-making.  Maybe it's what helps them clarify roles."

"Exactly.  So consider this: what if games are a natural phenomenon?  What if they are a part of how we train for life?  And what if adults still need some training?  And what if it is a part of how we get to know each other?  Wouldn't that deeply human process be a part of a Pen Pal network?"

"Games just seem shallow."

"So, sit out and stay on the sidelines.  Enjoy your philosophical interaction.  But don't get elitist about games. There's a depth to them that you miss when you dismiss it all as shallow."

For what it's worth, I have no intention of joining a make-believe mafia or a pretend agribusiness. Still, it has me thinking about my class. It has me wondering whether there is educational value in using games in the classroom.  Don't get me wrong, I don't want to use another Word Search or Tic Tac Toe.  Both are pencil-based, but based only on rote skill review.  But I'm wondering if there is a value in playing pretend, interacting with one another and using a pencil-based game in learning.

So, PLN, I'm curious about your take on games in the classroom.  What games do you use in the classroom?  What games allow for deeper thought?  Is there a danger in competition?  Or can competition be a valuable tool for learning?  Is there a difference between games and simulations?

I hate most teacher movies. I am not that easily inspired. To me, the mythology of the Silverscreen Superteachers is not only naive, it's destructive. It's the belief that we can save the world. It's the notion that we show up to work to save the day. It's the myth that we are self-sufficient, sacrificial individuals working alone to fight a battle against ignorance.

Yesterday, I thought through particular "superhero syndromes" and how they relate to education.  I've slipped into most of these at some point  in time.

Iron Man Syndrome: Leave the decision-making to those with money and power (aka Bill Gates)

Wonder Woman Syndrome: Bust out the Lasso of Truth and force people into being honest, when you won't even be transparent about your own identity / alter-ego

Super Market Syndrome: the belief that free markets always lead to free people (okay, in all honesty, there is not Super Market superhero, but it was a fun play on words)

Spiderman Syndrome: the notion that learning should be autodidactic; as if the best solution is to learn alone, no community, no sidekicks

Captain America Syndrome: the belief that the American Way is always the right way (especially when Captain America could learn a thing or two from Captain Canuck)

Superman Syndrome: the belief that power comes from being a Man of Steel, that gentleness and emotion have no place in education

Batman Syndrome: the belief that the power is in the technology, that the right gadgetry can save the world

I'm nervous about this short blog series.  Any time that I mention faith or religion or spirituality, I touch on a subject mired in conflict.  So, I want to preface this post by mentioning that I have no desire to preach.  The day my blog becomes a pulpit is the day I should quit blogging.  These are meant as personal reflections.  

I never had much school spirit -- I never cared much for any social institution -- one thing I learned from Nehemiah is that institutions help facilitate relationships

It's easy during the RIF and Reassign to feel as though I am a product.  After all, the term Human Resources suggests that I am valued only for what the district can extract.  In the past, I had principals who said, "John, don't leave.  We need you here.  You are important to this place."  This year, I have sent e-mails eagerly pleading for a sixth, seventh or eighth grade self-contained position.

The silence is good for me.  I started to think I was the "linchpin."  I'm not.  I'm not really a cog in the machine, either.  I'm a teacher who hasn't figured it all out.  My value does not come from whether or not I receive affirmation.

Still, it's a Tuesday and it feels like a Friday.  The desert sun makes the world feel like it's melting.  The oppressive hate of this state permeates like mustard gas.  I spit out a somewhat angry blog post myself and I consider quitting.   Not quitting my job, per se, but quitting my vocation and going through the motions of the job.  I'll pull back.  I'll become guarded.

I retreat to my classroom at lunchtime and go to the only place that makes sense.  People say that religion is a crutch.  Maybe I'm weak.  Maybe I need crutches.  But I turn to the narrative that cuts through the mustard gas fog.  It's the story of Nehemiah.  Spoiler alert: he helps a community build a wall.

I immerse myself in the story for a half an hour and then spend my prep period thinking through the story.  It's slow.  It's quiet.  No music.  No multitasking.  Just thinking through the story.  I jot down a few notes (it just might be sacrilege to turn the story into a list of bulleted points):

1. Nehemiah loved the people he didn't know.  He prayed about them, but he also took action.  On some level, this is what teachers experience.  We get a new group of children each year and we choose to love them regardless of what they have accomplished.
2. Nehemiah was positive, not in the "Hang in There" kitty poster kind of way.  He genuinely believed that hope could prevail.  
3. Nehemiah built walls.  For all my talk of "connecting to the outside," a classroom should have walls.  It should have structures.  It requires a sense of boundaries that help create a sense of safety. 
4. Nehemiah valued relationships and tasks.  Much of the conflict I'm experiencing right now comes from the fact that I forget about the necessary tasks that a district experiences.  I don't feel valued on a relational level.  I need to remember this, because even within my classroom, I can get task-centered and forget that my students are people. 
5. Nehemiah worked with those in power (even if they were corrupt and the system was imperfect) to accomplish something big.  I need to remember this when I begin to rail against the system.  Yes, the system is broken.  But so am I.  It just might be the perfect fit.
6. He also risked it all when he stood up for the poor and the oppressed. (He essentially goes after the old-school version of check cashing stores) God is on the side of the immigrant.  God cares about the barrio where I teach.  I shouldn't feel guilty for standing up for the immigrants.
7. When you do something different, you will face people who mock you.  Nehemiah had two men who would mock him and insult him and try to work the crowd.  If I don't have people slamming me, I'm probably not doing anything that really matters.  
8. Nehemiah planned ahead of time and then he was flexible enough to abandon his plans.  I tend to get too rigid with plans.  I start to think, "If I spent so much time in planning this then I need to follow through."  Sometimes it's best to adapt and change. 
9. Nehemiah's legacy failed because he failed to mentor.  Moses mentored Joshua.  It's a good approach
10. Nehemiah knew when to step back and let someone else run the show.  Thus, he allowed the more eloquent, prophetic guy Ezra lead the people.  I get the sense that Nehemiah knew his identity and knew when to say, "look this isn't me," and let someone else take over.  Part of the conflict that I feel right now involves my own sense of failure in things that are outside of my knowledge base, passion or identity.  I'm a teacher.  I'm not an event planner.  I'm not a manager.  
11. Humility is the answer.  Ultimately, Nehemiah's success revolved around his ability to serve rather than claim all the answers and bulldoze through the community.  

As the week progressed, I moved out of the fog and remembered the real reason for teaching.  I was able to see the positive side of life - like the moment when Christy watched her Mother's Day video that the boys and I made for her.  I'm actually feeling pretty excited about next year and I feel like I can finish this year well.

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

As a way to say "we appreciate teachers," the district assigns us a professional development day.  For what it's worth, the best show of appreciation would be to give me some autonomy and trust me to make decisions in my own classroom.  Or a candy bar.  Either one would do just fine.

I stock my notebook full of paper, grab a few extra pencils and prepare for a day of doodling sketches while a presenter drones in front of a Powerslide presentation.  I anticipate a day filled with dark rooms and humming Edison projectors.  We call them "workshops," which is a bit of a misnomer.  I've never gone to a workshop where someone spends an hour and a half gushing about how great the tools are while never using the tools to create anything.  

As I sit through the first workshop, I find my cynicism fading.  True, the presenter uses an interactive chalkboard (a projector / chart combination) and we each use paper and pencils as we plan out reading strategies.  We use shared documents in brainstorms.  We also talk and read. In fact, the presenter is far from a presenter.  She is a teacher who respects our own insights on the topic.  

In the math workshop, we use the same SmartCharts and Edison Projectors, shared documents and personalized pencil plogs.  However, we also use manipulatives and discuss how we might use chalk and slates to enhance a lesson.  

It's easy to slam workshops as being too short, too random and too irrelevant to be beneficial. However, today I felt like I entered a true workshop.  I had the chance to be an apprentice to a couple of masters.  We used the pencil-based tools, but it was the learning that felt transforming.  

*      *      *

As I walk back toward my horse, I eavesdrop on a conversation.  The first man says, "I'm glad that I learned some practical strategies, but I can't do that in my classroom.  We don't even have paper."  

The other teacher responds, "I was disappointed for the opposite reason.  I wanted some practical advice on how to use the slides and chart paper.  Math is okay, but I need step-by-step instructions on how to use my paper more effectively. I can learn math strategies by experimenting and feeling my way through it.  What I need is concrete advice on paper skills."  

"If they don't train you, then you won't use it, right?" 

"Exactly." 

I'm struck by this word "train."  We're not pets to train.  We are professionals.  It is our job to face our fears and learn.  Paper might be scary, but unless it catches on fire, it's not all that dangerous.

*     *     *

When I tell this to Paul the Preindustrial Poet, he disagrees.  "We're all on a journey, Tom.  True, they need to get over it, but the more they see it in action, the more open they will be."  

"Can't we just tell them they have to change?"  

"You just said that they can't be trained.  You talked about teacher autonomy and self-directed learners.  What if that means they need to go at their own pace?  Let them feel their way through it for awhile.  Change is slow.  It's organic.  Most growth happens underground."  

"Thanks for the agrarian metaphors, Paul."  

"Seriously, Tom.  They have every reason to be scared.  The role of a teacher is changing.  Imagine being an artist and learning that you can't use a canvas and paints anymore.  You'd get a little edgy.  You'd be a little skeptical, right?"

"I guess so."

"So, things are changing.  We're getting Kodaks in classrooms and now phonographs. Schools can connect to the world with a few clicks.  At some point each kid will have access to a telegraph.  Then there are the pencils and the paper and the portability of knowledge.  The teacher isn't the source anymore.  The issue isn't reluctance of changing tools.  It's the reluctance of losing one's identity."