Christy asked Joel for a list of names of people to sign his cast.
"Momma, can you sign Granddaddy's name since he's not around anymore to sign it."
Christy signed it and then cried. Sometimes I think we need little kids around to remind us that death is permanent and not permanent at the same time.
. . . and I don't know whether to cringe at the sloppy grammar and poor imitation of hip hop or smile at the use of two of our vocabulary words (emancipation and interpretation) and a clear understanding of the story. Excuse the language if you're easily offended, but it made me laugh. We read "The Tell-tale Heart" yesterday and I found this little anonymous gem in the turn-in bin:
"I don't know who writes the backs of the books, but they don't do a very good job. It's a bland plot synopsis with a few catchy words," a student says. He is the same one that is quick to point out cliches, mentioning that the line, "My time hasn't come yet," that just about every action movie uses was actually stolen from Jesus.
"I know. I don't really like books," a struggling reader points out. "Why can't they have those little movies that come on before the movies to show you what another movie is about."
"Trailers?" I ask.
"No, in movie theaters."
He has a point. If I could redesign the library, I would have a place where non-readers could get a sense of what books are like through short book trailers. Maybe this is a bad idea. The medium is the message, right? Except, I often choose a movie based upon a written review, so maybe this isn't a bad idea.
Perhaps this is already being done somewhere. If not, it's something that would work. Show the conflict, quote a few lines, make it interesting to the students. I'm not thinking of a video review, either. Not like Reading Rainbow. I'm thinking of a video that would captivate a student and get that child interested in a really good novel.
I used to believe that a subject had to have a direct application to life in order for it to become meaningful to students. At the same time, the applications were often clunky and artificial when forced upon us. For example, Lord of the Flies had little to do with bullying and more to do with questions about freedom and safety, human nature and the relationship between chaos and order. I wanted to discuss those themes, but I had a teacher who quickly turned the discussion into a talk about "mean boys."
Similarly, a well-intentioned math teacher once tried to develop a real-world scenario for algebra and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why I would ever want to know about the two different trains when the likelihood of being on a train in an era of air travel seemed minuscule. I remember she let some kids use blocks and draw pictures and for them it clicked. She wasn't a bad teacher. Actually, she often made the subject come alive like our Fantasy Football unit. Still, the train lesson tanked.
So, I had kids who couldn't figure out how to divide fractions. I first gave them a scenario of two different bags of chips and had them develop the question and answer for it. Some of them used backwards multiplications. Others drew pictures to get to the main point. They solved it and it felt meaningful, but still they missed the whole dividing fractions concept.
The next day, I gave the class a challenge. Each group had one item (a Lego, a ruler, a small clue) and had to work with other groups to figure out how many Legos it took to reach the ceiling in our classroom. I had students measuring the walls multiple times and finding the average (or floor is a bit slanted). I had students trying to multiply out the Legos.
Then, it happened. Three students who had completely bombed dividing fractions the day before started talking through it and in unison, they all say, "Divide it!" They went back to their notes and solved the problem.
In twenty minutes, we hit averages, percents, dividing fractions, writing an algebraic equation and converting from inches to centimeters. When the students took a common assessment the next day, every one of them aced it.
I am realizing that there is something besides "application" that makes math meaningful. I don't completely get it. This challenge had no practical purpose whatsoever, but I had almost 100% student engagement.
Any thoughts?
Just a little over-the-top satire for you:
"Hey, did you see your score?"
"What do you mean?"
"Yeah, your parent score? It's on the Times. I thought you were a good parent."
"I am. I mean, I really love my children."
"I know, but the Times thinks you're not preparing them for a life in the global economy. Your daughter's not getting algebraic expressions."
"She's had a rough year. Her mom died and everything. Algebra just isn't the biggest issue on her mind right now."
"Tougher standards, that's what I say. Push her to do better. Quit making excuses. And your middle son. He's bad at reading."
"Yes, but we just recently adopted him. He's adjusting to the new culture."
"Let's have some data transparency here. Don't explain away why your children are bad kids. You aren't doing enough as a parent to love your child and I tend to think the politicians are right. I'm going to see if we can get CPS to take your kids away or at least set up a system where we can garnish your wages until your children increase their test scores and stay out of trouble."
Someone could easily glance at the title and assume that I'm a lazy teacher and on certain days in the mid-winter, I might be tempted to take a seat or to drag my feet or to yearn for some sunshine, all the while slowing down into a bland melancholy. However, for the most part, I work hard. I assess all the work students turn in. I participate in community service activities with them. I help them film documentaries and write articles for our class blog. One might also assume that I'm a bitter teacher. I'm actually quite happy with my job and I write a blog post each day explain why I feel fortunate to teach middle schoolers.
Tonight, I want to relax. I want to enjoy a movie with my beautiful wife. I'd even like to get back to the stack of narratives my students wrote last week. I'd love to find a few more resources for lessons next week. I'd enjoy chatting on Twitter and getting some feedback from people who are more experienced in math and reading.
Instead, I'm staring at twenty-five lesson plan templates. I will fill out intervention, enrichment, standards, essential questions, content objectives, language objectives, agendas / outlines, best practices with rationales and assessment for each lesson. I wrote my entire plan this morning on a sheet of paper with 4pt pencil font. It's a web with no columns and while no one else on Earth can decipher it, it makes sense to me.
So, here I am. I will copy and paste standards from pdf's and I'll pull out my best make-believe language from the education lexicon (no one has figured out that I'm faking it) and I'll store it in a binder so that strangers in suits - who wear a suit worth more than my wardrobe and work in conference rooms with motivational posters - can smile and say, "ahem, this is very well-constructed" as if a living, breathing classroom lesson is a piece of machinery or a wooden desk at an Amish workshop where you pretend you understand what's going on when you don't have a clue about their way of life.
I have a few thoughts on lesson plans:
Joel is deeply philosophical, a thinker, an intellectual wanderer who struggles at times with the structures of school.
Or not.
See, I wrestle with whether or not I project my own personality on him as I try and understand who he is. I begin to wonder if maybe the things I see about him are in fact true, but I'm ignoring the parts that are different because on some very primitive level, I want a son who is like me.
Then I wonder if maybe I'm accidentally turning him into me and breaking some part of who he is that's actually beautiful. Then I wonder if perhaps one's parents are simply a strong influence in the beginning, but they're just the setting, the exposition of sorts before the bigger conflict occurs and the character development changes my son into someone who might be pretty different from who he is now.
We're wrapping up Barefoot Heart in my class and I'm wishing I had chosen A Place to Stand or The Gangster We're All Looking For as the memoir instead. I introduced our next novel options to the class and it's a two-way tie:
Often times visitors show up and ask about the pencils. "How do you keep them so sharp?" or "How do they remain such a bright yellow?" or even "Do they have an eraser capacity?"
They obsessively focus on the texture of the paper or the gloss on the shiny pencils and they miss the beauty that takes place within the seven walls (as a new initiative, our district is trying out hexagon-based learning and has spent money not on raising teacher pay but in creating classrooms that have different spatial features to help ensure creative thinking).
I get used to the pencil talk and have memorized a mantra that involves a smile and a gentle push toward pedagogy. This time, however, a visitor walks in and moves past the pencils. "Show us the plog. Let us see what students are doing." It moves into a discussion about the math problem they had recently finished that had actually involved slates (yes, I still use them).
As the class period progresses, they seem interested mostly in student learning. The pencils and the paper are merely a secondary factor. This gives me hope for pencil integration. Perhaps in another century pencil and paper will be such a normal phenomenon that visitors won't be impressed with the medium but with the way students manipulate it to create their own learning.
Our current state Superintendent of Public Instruction (an odd euphemism given the fact that the state has taken so many measures to pull the the "public" from public instruction) is a former lawyer turned board member turned superintendent of the wealthiest school district who is now running for State Attorney General. This was simply his political stepping stone and while he had a few good decisions, we as teachers often felt stepped on in the process.
So, here's my litmus test I will use with a candidate before I ever even listen to the speeches or hear the ideas:
Joel and Micah have both had limited computer time together. I've allowed them to play some games on PBS kids. Not often, but just some basic exposure. Joel played a game that involved bouncing a ball and then asked if we could do it in real life and then the game seemed pretty lame. Every once in awhile I let them play on the computer again. Both of them enjoyed making silly videos with Photobooth.
However, I don't like the idea of Joel having a computer class once a week. Yes, I know they are digital natives and it's the language they speak and in a globalized society meets new economy
I'm not crazy about my son using social media. I don't want him on Facebook. It's OCD meets voyeurism meets ADD meets narcissism. I've already experienced the ugliness of how anti-social the medium can be. I know there are some real benefits to Facebook. It keeps people connected. However, I'm not sure what they are connected to. I get the hunch we're more connected to a flickering screen than to one another.
I realize there is a ton of paradox here and I encourage my students to navigate this paradox. However, Joel is too young. I don't want him reading Shakespeare at this age or dating or driving a car, either. Certain things are meant for certain age. Joel is a little kid. He can hardly hold a pencil correctly. I'm not about to throw him into cyberspace.
Yes, but it's just a tool. It's the learning that counts. Yet, as much as I want Brenna to someday defy gender stereotypes and excel in woodshop, I wouldn't trust a nine month old with a band saw. As much as I want Micah to love math, I don't hand him a calculator for trigonometric proofs.
It's the same reason he won't have a cell phone anytime soon. Joel needs to hit a ball and chase bugs and live in the temporal, tangible now. I want him to hold a gecko and watch it change colors - not on a flickering screen but in the palm of his hands, because the greatest gift I can give to a digital native is the chance to see that captured imagery is not the same thing as the vitality of life.
Yes, he's a digital native. But for now, I want him to feel native in his own backyard. Let him feel the grass beneath his feet and the sky above his head before he taps away at a keyboard. Let his mind expand with the hummingbirds before he delights in a humming gadget. Let him drop computers and take an extra class of art or PE or music.
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 the data proves regarding this point. Our test scores might turn out to be awful and our students might be unprepared and like communism and Wings and Crystal Clear Pepsi, this might be a failed experiment that started out as a grand idea and fell flat.
However, I am immediately noticing the benefits of self-contained. Discipline is easier than ever before. If it is not about rewards and punishments but about trust and relationship, then a teacher can build this in the first few weeks rather than trying to remember names (much less personalities) in a sea of one hundred and sixty students.
It goes beyond simply "discipline" though. While I am not the warm, cuddly man-in-a-cardigan kind of teacher, I am consistent and I do listen with empathy. When students aren't switching constantly, we get to know one another and already they see me out on duty and share their questions or their insights or their stories. I become an available person to listen to them and at that age, knowing that they have a voice is a big deal.
Furthermore, time is more fluid. If a math lesson takes longer, I can push it into science and then create a longer block the next day. Not a big deal, really. Yet, it goes deeper. I now have a true humanities block, where I am blending together reading, writing and social studies into larger themes. Right now it's "Developing a Social Voice" and next week it is "Songs of Freedom," which will include the poetry we cover, a few biographies, the American Revolution and their own stories of freedom.
What happens is that the boundaries begin to blur in the best possible way. I had a student yesterday make a connection between cells and child labor in the early 20th century. Others have tied in the timeline to the number line in math. While this might not seem like a huge deal, the connections across the curriculum are helping them reshape how they think about a subject. A student told me yesterday, "I never knew there could be logic in social studies" and another one said, "I feel like this kind of math actually is used in life." These are rare compliments from a group that is often so self-conscious they don't risk giving positive feedback.
I'm not suggesting that this works for everyone. I know of two teachers who taught self-contained and realized that they preferred to be experts in one content area. I've known a few who mention the fact that the lack of student variety began to get on his nerves. It's early in the year and honestly I might end up like that. However, at this moment, I'm beginning to think that the self-contained model is one that might work well for my students and for myself.
Somewhere along the line, we failed. We as a society. We as educators. We failed to teach basic constitutional literacy and now we're paying for it:
Joel's comments this week have had an impact on how I teach. It's odd that I'm allowing a kindergartner to reshape how I think about my own classroom:
I've been keeping a journal of all the reasons I love teaching - one for every day of school - on another site called The Best Part of Teaching. I decided not to post them here, because it would get way too crowded. However, I will post one selection every Thursday. Here's my first:
When I was a kid, I believed that reading could become more popular if the geeks had some slick advertising, beyond those Michael J. Fox “Read” posters or “The More You Know” segments and the B-rated acting on the Ad Council propaganda. Plaster a book cover on a NASCAAR or replace the beer advertisement at a ballpark. Make it trendy like Pogs and Slammers and ALF.
In college, I thought that the best idea involved banning books. Go Farenheit 451and we’d have underground book clubs. Ban them from schools and explain that ideas are dangerous and yet allow adults to walk into a shady bookstore with no windows. Tell kids that they could own a book when they are twenty-one and watch the binge reading occur on college campuses. Folks would brag rather than whine about their cram sessions.
I still cringe when I see reading programs. When I go to the library (or as some neo-cons call it “the socialist book lending, anti-copyright collective”) I get angry at the free pizza coupons (lets trade in the joy of reading for a fried piece of dough) and the tickets to ball games and the levels of bribery teaching children that reading is a chore that must be conquered. I smile every night when Christy reads Joel and Micah a chapter from The Chronicles of Narnia and I can grow cynical about how school will test away their love of literature. (Joel was in tears last night, completely inconsolable because she wouldn't read him the last chapter)
These suspicions are confirmed when I ask my students to bring in a book from home and only seven have a book. In their defense, I ask them rather than demand it, because the last thing I’m going to do is turn a novel into fried dough before they’ve begun the reading process.
On some level, I understand. I’ve been to many homes in the area that have no books. I realize that it’s rare for a child to walk in a hundred ten degree heat to a library. (They’d do it if books were banned, though) Still, I grow frustrated. If it were a power saw, I might get a few students to bring one in and yet words are far more powerful than a saw so in my twisted teacher logic, I expect complete compliance among students.
I do a hard sell of my favorite memoirs. It’s not on purpose, but my passion for a well-crafted autobiography turns me into an Amway-meets-Shamwow sales rep. The students meet my passion with a wall of apathy that lasts through their entire drill-and-kill district-mandated standardized math test. It turns out I’m a better teacher than marketer. I begin to feel a strange kinship with the Ad Council people who try really hard.
When it’s over, a student walks up to my bookshelf and grabs five Jerry Spinelli books. ”Look, I know reading sucks, but these books are different,” he informs his friends and they begin to read. Another student quietly asks if he can read A Place to Standand the way he whispers it makes me feel like I’m a crack dealer and I begin to wonder if this is something he has to do every year – pretend he doesn’t care when he actually loves reading – or if this is something new. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. He’s reading a thought-provoking memoir because he could relate to the main character and even though I watch him trip over the language, he continues . . . at least for now.
When we walk to lunch, another student asks me if I had ever read Noam Chomsky and unlike the quiet reader, he wants a loud, grown-up conversation, because he’s thirsting to understand the politics of colonialism and to find out if it’s somehow connected to his own schooling. He asks if we’ve shifted toward Assimilation Schools and I get the sense that he’s not looking so much for an answer as he is a space for his questions.
Later, as we read part of Barefoot Heart, the students passionately debate whether the character was naive as a child or simply content with her poverty. It’s a story that speaks loudly to their lives and to the unspoken climate of SB1070. It turns out the bribery in all its fried-dough glory has not killed the love of reading. The anti-nerd youth culture hasn’t censored the power of the narrative. It’s alive, because of the power of story and the way that it speaks truth into our lives.
I have friends who are really into unschooling. Some of them for social reasons, other for spiritual ones and still others because it’s trendy like listening to vinyl records and crocheting a hat and raising chickens in your back yard. They recite to me the complaints of the educational factory and I concur each time. They paraphrase Alfie Kohn and they speak of revolutions and I leave the conversation feeling tired.
Sometimes even a little hypocritical.
They’re right. I can’t make my students love reading, especially when I can’t even get them to bring a decent book to school. Well-intentioned pizza coupons knocked the motivation out of them. The factory school works against all things creative. And yet . . .
I can still share my passion and offer a few bookshelves and watch what happens when the bribes are no longer a factor. I can sneak an insightful memoir for a kid who is just beginning to find his voice. I can repurpose the factory and find a place of creativity that grows in the most unexpected places – that ivy that finds its way through the reinforced concrete, proving that a living, breathing story is still more powerful than the industrial concrete.
Ultimately, that’s a part of why I love middle school. They aren’t in love with school like the little kids. They know it’s a broken factory, but they aren’t cynical like the high schoolers. I get students at just that age when they are open to become critical thinkers who are open to repurposing the factory.
Joel loves school. He loves PE and learning how to read and the playground (though he have a pretty bad sprain today). However, the structure of school is still a little difficult. He's not the type of kid who gets out of his chair very often, but he warned me that unlike home, "We have to sit down. It's not even a choice. Can you believe that?" Yeah, I can believe that - partially because I can't handle chaos and I severely limit freedom of movement in my own classroom.
A couple of days ago, he said to me, "They only give you fifteen minutes to eat. It sounds like a lot but it's not." (Joel doesn't have a great perception of time).
"Can't you eat faster?"
"I'm getting better. I'm eating a lot faster instead of enjoying my food."
So, he gets an education. He learns to sacrifice quality for efficiency. Perhaps summertime or a decent meal with the family will unteach him this lesson.
I rarely embed videos or send links on this blog, but this really stood out to me as a great explanation of why rewards don't work well. This is why teacher pay-for-performance schemes won't lead to the status quo, but rather ruin the teaching profession altogether. I've read other takes on this phenomenon, including the idea of social norms versus market norms. However, this talk by Daniel Pink mixed with the imagery and sketches make for a thought-provoking video.
It's Meet the Teacher night and the first student walks in with no parent. He notices the netbooks, but instead asks about the classroom configuration and then about the way that it's painted and eventually the conversation meanders toward the computers. Except he asks, "What will we be learning with them?" rather than "What kind of netbook are they?" We discuss the podcasts and the blog and the documentaries, the concept maps and the problem-based learning. Yet, he's more excited about the projects than the technology.
The next student is a monolingual who has been in the United States for a month. He says, "Thank you for to compare the computers, Mrs. Spencer." I ask him to repeat it in Spanish and it becomes clear that compare and comprar seem like cognates to him. We talk in Spanish for awhile and he reminds me that while he didn't have computers in his school, he had good teachers and that ultimately it is what we learn together that will make it a real education.
Other students trickle in and spend some time hanging out. Being self-contained, there aren't any other teachers for the students to meet and being a walking distance, neighborhood school, half the students come without a parent or guardian.
"You know that an HP Mini 210 doesn't make you a good teacher," a gifted boy tells me. I'm impressed that he can spot the model from a distance. "It's all about your pedagogy," he points out with thick italics. "Do you know what pedagogy means?"
"On my good days, yes. On my worst days, I forget it."
After awhile, the posturing drops and it becomes clear that he knows computers. We talk about Linux for awhile and eventually we're discussing books and movies and how we'll paint a mural in the back of my classroom.
We had professional development today and the speaker kept referring to Hispanic students and the values within the culture. I wasn't bothered by the term, but it did seem to reveal his East Coast academia background. Around here we use Latino more often. I'm not sure either term really capture what it is people are looking for, but it's there nonetheless. Perhaps mestizo might work best?
I know I've posted too many lists lately, but I think it's a coping mechanism. With the chaos of the school year starting, I find myself trying to put things into lists in order to stay sane. Case in point: I find myself getting way too proud of myself for everyday things that aren't really huge feats. But initially when it happens, I feel like I've won the Pulitzer prize:
"Hey, watch this!" Joel yells, beckoning us off the porch and out to the swing set.
He begins to scale the pole, gasping for breath, face wrenching in frustration. I imagine him dropping and cracking his head on the garden half-wall. I shudder at the prospects and then I'm consumed with admiration for his courage. I smile and watch. At the halfway mark, he rethinks the whole endeavor, paralyzed by the fear that he and I both share. Still, he presses on and as he reaches the top, he yells out, "I did it." It's a Braveheart moment. Well, maybe not. There's no war paint or killing or vindictive motivation. But he's conquering his fear and that counts worth something.
Some might say that we were irresponsible in that moment. Perhaps even negligent. I wouldn't disagree. Yet, there's also another type of negligence that occurs when parents obsessively offer hand sanitizer and gates and knee pads for bicycle riding. There's something irresponsible about presenting an antiseptic, rule-following, nice-guy world.
I don't pretend to understand the balance between freedom and safety. I'm rarely tempted to become Red on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest stomping around the world with a message of "live dangerously and fuck authority not because they are corrupt but because all authority is corrupt." I could be Dennis Hopper and live out Easy Rider and end up strung out on heroine, but it's just not very appealing to me.
I'm rarely tempted to become Mr. Rogers donning a cardigan and talking to the suburban neighborhood puppets who chat endlessly about the weather and live vicariously through the local hometown sports team. I could recognize that depth is dangerous and it's better to avoid the chasm of disagreement than build a bridge of understanding, but ultimately it's my need for deeper connections that lead me to conversations where I realize that suburbia is more profound than it first appears.
Still I find the balance to be difficult. I fail to speak up when I should and I run from relational conflict. However, I also walk around with a certain attitude of social indifference and an independence that can make me feel free while leaving others to feel unsafe. I don't have it all figured out.
So, it makes me think of the school year. I'm going to encourage my students to be free and to speak up and to go places emotionally and intellectually that might be uncomfortable. Yet, I also want to create a safe environment with a community who cares about them. Parenting has taught me that these two goals are often in tension with one another, but still worth pursuing. I want my students to feel safe enough to be free and free enough to be safe.
When I first started teaching social studies, I told my students, "I'ts not about the names and dates and figures. It's not about strong people who shaped history. The reason we learn history is to avoid the mistakes of the past." It had a nice progressive ring to it and the kids seemed relieved that they wouldn't have to memorize disconnected facts for the purpose of acing a kill-and-drill test.
Over the course of the year, I encouraged students to be the critics of the past. They held the gavel and weighed the evidence of the actions of the past. So, the Nazis were guilty, not only of the actions of war crimes, but also of the injustice of apathy. Malcolm X was a mixed figure, with some supporting his militant ideas and others thinking it went against the goal of human harmony and still others supporting the ideas of bold militancy but hating the homophobic and misogynist elements of the movement.
In the midst of that year, I visited my grandpa who shared what it was like to be in World War II. "We weren't any morally superior," he explained. "We were just kids put into a war and I saw things brought out the best and worst in people." He could never come to terms with the notion of an evil humanity or original sin or anything like that, choosing instead to think that an ideological fog had fallen on good people who did horrible things because they simply wanted to follow directions and live a quiet life with their family.
My grandpa could be shockingly progressive at moments (especially on the topic of Latinos and immigration) and then say something really racist in the next breath. I cringed when he would make comments about the Japanese ruining our auto industry. But it didn't change my memories of him taking us out for ice cream and telling us that we should get the colossal cone, because it was better to try something big and fail then to get one scoop and leave feeling like you could have tackled more. He said it just like that with the word "tackle," as if food were a game of football.
Everyone fit into the Good Guys and Bad Guys concept and we read peoples' lives as if they were the back of baseball cards and we were creating our own Fantasy History league full of people who would tell us the right and the wrong way to live. We'd have a nice and tidy list of do's and don'ts and we'd be better people in the end.
Disclaimer: I'm always nervous about bringing up faith on this blog, because the last thing I'm looking for is a theological debate. I'm hoping you'll read it for what it is: a story about my kid.
I'm with Micah this morning, doing our own Sunday School. He doesn't want to go to church today and I'm not pushing it. I want to guide my kids and share my faith with them, but I also want them to own their journey. The last thing I'm looking for is indoctrination.
I tell him a story and we talk about it. It's the Prodigal Son. He makes the connection to the story of Jonah. "I don't think God really let's people run away. He'll send a fish to save you if you do." Maybe. Maybe not. Those ideas are too big for me to comprehend. I'm just glad he's not convinced that God is pissed at him.
"We should pray," he says.
"Let's do it, then."
"God, I hope you're real even if I can't see you. Thank you for back yards and for lip stick." He means Chapstick.
Later he says, "I should tell God I'm sorry, but I forget a lot. It's okay. I think he loves me even when I forget to apologize." Yep, God loves us. After all, he gave us a world of back yards and lip balm.
There are certain types of technology I avoid for philosophical reasons (cell phones and alarm clocks). However, there are other tech items I don't like for the sheer reason that they annoy me (By the way, I am pretty happy this morning. Please don't take the tone for a warning sign or anything).
It's five o'clock and Meat the Teacher night is beginning. The crowd is extra large due to the issues with an error in homophones (or homonyms - I can't always keep them straight), assuming that the teachers were putting on a barbecue, which would be cool because nothing builds community like the collective bonds of setting animal flesh on an open flame and then digging into the carcass while talking about the weather.
I'm going with Pencil Me In for the title, but I'm not sure what the subtitle should be. Here are a few options:
Joel says, "Hey, that's Machaca Mama."
I respond, "Joel, you know that in real life his name is Barack Obama."
Joel answers, "I know that. But this is t.v. Everything on it is pretend. Even the president is pretending."
Joel has a point about both politics and television. As long as he remembers that it is an entertainment device and nothing more (and that it is most dangerous when it is trying to be serious) he'll be ahead of the curve in media criticism.
I'm a republican. I believe in the republican form of government.
I'm a democrat. I believe in the will and voice of the people.
I'm a socialist. I believe that government should be socially-minded and that social issues are important.
I'm a capitalist. I believe that true competition (not transnational corporations) and a free market are a strong foundation for equal opportunity.
I'm a communist. I believe in sharing one's wealth (Acts 2, for example), though I like it to be voluntary rather than mandatory.
I'm a libertarian. I believe that civil liberties matter and that the right of the individual needs to be balanced with the will of the people.
I'm a green. I think sustainability is the answer rather than creating more bubble economies.
I'm a patriot. I vote. I do community service. I love my country enough to think critically about issues and try to participate in the civic process.
I'm a globalist. I think what we share as humanity is more common than what we share within our cultures. I can't possibly believe that I am superior based upon an arbitrary political boundary.
As long as I keep all of those in lower case, I can usually find enough common ground with people to have a respectful conversation.
We're wandering around the garden, looking at bugs and hoping for more peppers growing. Joel asks me, "Why are the ones on the inside getting bigger?"
"I don't know," I answer. The truth is that I don't know, either. Perhaps the tomatoes closer to the inside of the vine get larger. Perhaps it's just our perception. Now is not the time to argue Wigenstein and Plato or to delve into metaphysics or epistemology.
We sit for awhile, silently searching for life. Micah stares at the lizards scaling the wall.
"Do tomatoes get ripe because of the heat or because of the light?" Joel asks.
At this point, we can observe. We can set up an experiment where we take tomatoes and place them in the warmth and inside, in the dark and in the light and we can observe again. I very well might see if he can help me come up with the experiment. He might stumble along the way and get frustrated, but he'll learn.
If this was my classroom, I'd say, "Go search on Google. Find at least three sources, look at whether or not there is bias and show me the logic they use in presenting their information." And that would pass as inquiry. I'd be called a constructivist teacher and it would be considered authentic learning and I just might congratulate myself in the moment for letting that child explore.
I don't want to demolish the factory. I have no intent in building a newer, better system. But I'd like to repurpose it so that it has a few murals on the inside and guests from the outside are welcome to share their stories and it has books that don't pretend to be the ultimate authority on our nation's narrative. I'd also like a garden, not merely for aesthetic, but for food. If I have to teach the life cycle this year, I want them to explore with their senses.
I'm meeting with Paul the Preindustrial Poet. He has this worn-out notebook with him - the kind that existed before tabs and folders. He writes lines of poetry, not in any sequential order, but wherever he finds space. Sometimes he'll fill the blank space with an entire short story. One entire page is a series of 140 character short stories he wrote just to prove to me that one can, in fact, tell a narrative on a pen pal network.
Paul tried to write a plog at one time, because he bought into the lie that every good teacher needs to write a plog. It was too structured for him and too public as well. "Look, I would never say that every teacher needs to write poetry or that every teacher needs to write for Hearst. The reality is that different people find a medium that works for them."
Mr. Brown doesn't plog, either. Or at least, he doesn't plog about school. He writes mostly about fantasy and baseball and his fantasies of running a baseball team. He says that in another century he might be able to find a like-minded group of people who would participate in a make-believe league where they would live vicariously through a sport that allows people to live vicariously through athletes. Mr. Brown won't go on the pen pal networks. It's just not his thing.
My wife is social. Very social. She knows everyone in the neighborhood. She has a whole social network within walking distance of our front porch. (She thinks its sacrilege that I don't call it a "stoop.") However, she has no desire to plog or to participate in the pen pal networks. She's a teacher. Not formally, but in conversation, in life, in her actions and in her questions. She plans to home school the kids when they aren't at school (we'll do both home school and public school, saving most of the home-schooling for weekends and summers).
Some of the best teachers I know are not pencil geeks. They have no desire to write a plog or go on a pen pal network or use social book marking. What makes them great is their passion for the subject, their love for their students and the way they combine these in practical, tangible ways. If a plog is part of the deal, it's great. We all get to learn from them. If not, that's okay.
If the district made it mandatory for me to plog, I would quit plogging. I would probably plagiarize or find passive-agressive ways to get back at the power elite. I would see myself as a pencil pusher and my plog as mere paperwork. But alas, I can plog when I want and it isn't tied up with my self-concept as a teacher.
If you look close enough, you'll see past the white-washed lies and realize that there are no formulas, no rules, no magic recipes. People will make a fortune selling snake oil to teachers in the guise of offering "resources." Don't get me wrong. We need to share stories and ideas. We need to be philosophical and practical. I subscribe to blogs where people share some great advice that has changed my approach to teaching. But if a man in a suit tries to convince you that the answer is in a system or a program, please run.
Somebody told me that if I want to be popular, productive and prone to alliteration, I need to make lists and post them on the pen pal networks. So here goes my first list titled 100 SUPER-AMAZING WAYS TO USE PENCILS IN YOUR CLASSROOM. (Not sure why I had to add that in the body if it's in the title, but there it is)
Summer is all about escape. It's escape from the frantic pace of teaching and from the factory-styled education and from the constant need to be completely present. It's escape from fighting little battles against distractions or tedium or a system that drive kids toward both distractions and tedium. It's even an escape from the students themselves. I know that sounds harsh, but by the end of the year, as much as I enjoy them, I'm ready for a break from adolescents acting like adolescents.
Some choose Cabo or camping or conferences. I choose home as much out of necessity as out of choice. I choose writing and reading and running and hours upon hours with my kids. I find myself in the garden or on the grass or anywhere else that permits mismatched clothes and barefeet and a wandering mind.
. . . is the noise students make when you say the word. Yes, I know they are great collaborative tools (though a student last year made an excellent point about the danger of losing one's voice in the collective voice). However, what makes wikis fun are the Star Wars noises and the DJ noises (think high-pitched turn table wiki-wiki-wiki) you get when you say the word in class.
I like Diane Ravitch. I appreciate a person in power admitting that she was wrong about No Child Left Behind and working tirelessly on behalf of authentic, constructivist education. Her latest work on deconstructing the myths about the success of New York charter schools has been brilliant. I listened to excerpts from her speech with the NEA crowd and marveled at how she was able to articulate so clearly what teachers feel and see and experience on a daily basis.
In education reform, she plays the role of Snape. We need her. We need the perspective of someone who converted from a Death Eater to the Order of Phoenix and we need to believe in the concept of Phoenix. Out of the ashes of a broken system new life can grow. Perhaps even Arne can get out of the dark arts of testing-based reform. Yes, I know about her past. Yes, I realize that power is a corrupting force, but she is a reminder that even powerful people can find redemption.
However, she should not be the leader of reform. I get frustrated sometimes with how often people retweet everything she writes or quote her as if she was the pope of pedagogy. I know this sounds harsh, but someone coming out of the power elite should first learn humility rather than simply shift ideology. Let her spend more time listening. Let her ask more questions. Let her avoid the pitfall of extremism of the one side to extremism of the other side. Let her spend a year in the inner-city as a substitute teacher with no one knowing her name. You get a different perspective in a dingy staff lounge where you don't get water served in those fake plastic cups that look like glass and there are no table cloths and the coffee tastes like dirt and the lunch break is twenty-seven minutes.
If we believe in democratic education and authentic learning and the belief that the system shouldn't be a hierarchy, let's avoid placing Diane Ravitch and Alfie Kohn and Sir Ken Robinson on magical pedestals. Don't get me wrong, they all have great ideas. Yet, they are the ideas that we, as teachers, are already saying. Despite my penchant for using Harry Potter metaphors, the truth is that we don't need more magical wizards to tell us how to fix our system. We need humble muggles who realize that the real magic is often seen on a very local level, within the mind of a student. Everything else is an illusion.
