Somewhere in his first year of life, Micah noticed the moon. I'm doubtful that he understood that it was far away or that it was a sphere or that it orbited the earth. It was a beautiful mystery to him.

Somewhere between two and three, he noticed that the moon was out during the day. I'm not sure where he had learned it, but he had figured out that the moon created (I know, I know, reflected is the right answer) light. He questioned why the day wasn't brighter. He questioned why the moon was out early. It was still a mystery to him.

That same year, he figured out that the moon disappeared and that it took different shapes. The stories he created were bizarre and more complex from ages three to four: the moon was made of ice cream and it melted down into different shapes or maybe God ate pieces of it and then replenished it when it got empty; the moon was filled with flashlights and sometimes they burned out; the moon was really a black and white object and it looked more white as it moved in the sky. Regardless of the stories he developed, the moon was still a mystery to him.

Two nights ago, he asked if he could go outside and look at the moon. He stood on our patio table and studied it intently.

"Look. It's one big circle. Part of it is dark and part is white."

"Why do you think that is?"

"The light is all around it," he explained.

Not really. Not like a solar eclipse, but he was right. You could see the entire circle.

"There's a light shining on one side and there's not light on the rest," he explained.

"Where do you think the light comes from?"

"The sun already disappeared, so maybe it's God?"

"That's an idea."

I haven't corrected him. I haven't pulled out the lunar charts. I want to see how far he gets on his own. And when he gets to a point that he understands the moon, I'm hoping it will still be a mystery to him.

photo credit - Nick K.

 

I'm at a conference, listening to a technophile gush about the latest available tools that schools need to quit blocking.

"What's relevant to kids these days?"

"Facebook," the audience cries out in unison.

"See, you know it. I know it. What's relevant for the students? Let the kids use Facebook. Get them on Twitter. Find the tools that they use in life."

I have serious concerns with Facebook, ranging from privacy to data mining. However, I'm much more concerned with the obsession with relevance.

*     *     *

The Astrodome was the most relevant stadium of its time. With the largest JumboTron, the trendiest color choice and a very modern, symmetrical design, it embodied the Space Age. It was the anti-Fenway. It was the ball park of the future. It was relevant.

It wasn't developed with the purpose of baseball in mind, though. A simple foul ball nearly blinded the players, so they had to paint the ceiling tiles, which killed the grass, which led to Astro Turf. Astro Turf was relevant. It made sense. Except it looked ugly and it meant a diving catch could end a career. The stadium, once relevant, became a joke.

So, I think of lesson design. I'm not interested in relevant. I'm not looking for the trendiest tools. I'm not out to find the latest research from a collage artist like Marzano. I'm not peppering my lessons with the latest pop culture references to prove just how insanely hip I am (not that hip if I use hip, unless I'm a hipster using hip ironically).

Remember Carmen San Diego? Remember Lazer Discs? Remember WebQuests? Remember how all of those relevant technologies were going to transform learning?

Fenway gets it right. The stadium was designed to fit the community, which explains the quirky field dimensions and why it continues to be one of the most creative designs in baseball. It was designed to fit the game of baseball, which is why it's so classic.

I want to teach more like Fenway and less like the Astrodome. Or better yet, I want my teaching to be a hybrid ballpark like San Francisco, where there are still new innovations in structure and design (no one's staring at a pole like they do in Fenway), but a clear embrace of the context, the community and the classic ideas. I want to start with meaning and purpose rather than relevance. And the crazy part? When I start with purpose, students often find it relevant to their lives.

Photo Credit

 

Adam and Eve were fooled by the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  In our contemporary context, we are much more apt to look for the Solution Tree as a source for what works in education. And if we listen to the slithering sales pitch long enough, we are apt to believe a lie and feel at least a little naked in the result.

I guess a Solution Tree is a step in the right direction. After all, I'd rather look for solutions that grow naturally than those that are simply manufactured. Let the bad ones fall to the ground, rot for awhile and experience rebirth in another season (perhaps a dying NCLB can become a sparkly new Race to the Top)

But I'm not sure solutions are what I'm looking for.  The problem with seeking out solutions is that it begins with the presupposition that everything in education is a problem. I see it everywhere. The system is broken. Teachers are evil, Nazi, child-abusing criminals and here's a shiny new solution. Take the un-fruit and you'll finally be ashamed of what you've really become. Others shout that public education is failing our students. We need higher accountability. We need more tests. Take a bite of the fruit promising great and wonderful thing this side of paradise. Or glassy eyed technophiles beckon us away from being teachers. Let us step away and facilitate. Pass around some shiny new Apples and we'll have the utopia we've been dreaming of.

I'm tired of solutions. I'm tired of everything being a massive problem. I'm tired of being blamed for every social ill from the drug epidemic to teen pregnancy to the tanking economy. I'm tired of hearing how I'm failing to train up the next batch of engineers who will win the global pissing contest against China and India.

I'm tired.

I'm not tired of possibilities, though.  See possibilities aren't fool-proof. They're speculative. They're humble. A possibility is about hope rather than certainty. A possibility says, "Solutions don't grow on trees. Really, they don't. But here's the deal: try something new. Or better yet try something old that we've lost in factory education. Try it and see if it works. There's a chance it just might."

Possibilities treat teachers as potential innovators rather than lock-step practitioners of a technocratic solution. Possibilities respect the need for nuance and paradox. Possibilities work within the tiny confines of context and relationships. Possibilities are road maps where you can meander in your own journey rather than magic tickets to the utopian reality. Possibilities allow us to build on what works rather than making blanket statements about how it's all failing.

I get excited the minute someone talks about possibilities. I get passionate about the potential for transformation. However, I am always weary of anyone claiming to offer the solution when they haven't even asked whether it was a problem in the first place.

 

A friend at a birthday party tries to convince me to smoke pot. He lays out a long, convincing argument about why marijuana isn't as bad as alcohol. I nod my head and smile.

"I've never tried it, not because I think it's inherently wrong, but because it would jeopardize my career and ruin my family."

"So, you mean to tell me you don't think it's a sin, but you think it's unwise?"

"Exactly."

"It's a gift. It's an experience you need to have. And you're not going to try it because you think it's unwise?"

"Yep."

"I think it's unwise to avoid life experiences because of irrational fear."

I walk away from the conversation a little confused. It's been well over a decade since anyone has tried to get me to smoke with them and here I am at a kid's birthday party debating the wisdom of such a move. For the record, I'll avoid smoking pot. But the wisdom of such a move is a little gray.

*     *     *

Javi the Hippie and I are debating the definition of wisdom as we share a pint.

"I think it's the ability to think well about life," I tell him.

"That's way too broad. If you do that, you'll have to include choosing a good beer in the category of wisdom."

"You don't think it takes wisdom to go with the hefeweizen? You don't think it takes wisdom to know how to drink it slow enough to enjoy it but fast enough that it stays cold? You don't think it takes wisdom to realize that getting drunk is the worst way to drink?"

"I think that's practical knowledge, but it's not wisdom."

"So, can we narrow it down to something like existential knowledge?" I ask.

"I'm not sure it's knowledge.  I wonder if maybe it involves emotions. I think it's deeply tied to empathy."

I ask Christy for a definition of wisdom. "I think it's the ability to use your skills to love people." I'm shaken by her definition. It's different. It's powerful. It encompasses what Javi and both grappled with over a pint.

*     *     *

Schools are designed for the acquisition of knowledge.  Occasionally we move from measurable knowledge to immeasurable knowledge. However, when I think of what's missing, it often fits into the general sense of wisdom: a recognition of mortality, a deeper questioning of existence and identity, philosophical conversation, an expansion of one's worldview, ethical thinking, a chance to serve the community, a better understanding of relationships, opportunities to experience the world rather than simply read about it.

Sometimes it's as simple as an analog clock. Other times it's a mural or a garden or a hard conversation about death when one of your schoolmates dies from an asthma attack. Sometimes it's a simple Socratic discussion. Other times it's a different way of reading a novel.

It's not that I'm against knowledge. I'm not advocating that schools abandon the Quadratic Formula or throw away the copies of Shakespeare. Wisdom is an expansion of knowledge. It's that second step of guiding knowledge toward thinking well about life or being empathetic or learning to love. It's an embrace of why does this matter?  rather than simply how will this be tested?

 

binomial nomenclature has its place -- in the right context

My mentor looked at me cautiously and said, "John, you're not going to like hearing this, but No Child Left Behind wasn't evil. It was misguided. It was unwise, but there were some good things that came out of it."

"What do you mean?"

"You can disagree with the methods used. They were horrible. You can disagree with the approach. It needs to be changed. But I remember hearing teachers say things like 'that kid won't make it anyway' or 'you can't expect these kids to read at grade level.' In some schools, it was a wake-up call."

"We're being tested to death."

"I agree with you. But I was in those schools before and after and the results have been mixed. There were some teachers with a really low view of what urban students were capable of accomplishing."

She went on to explain the down side of standardized tests, the arrogance of some of the powerful elite and the failure to understand the context. But she also reminded me that many of the kill-and-drill proponents are misguided and unwise, but not altogether wrong in their motives.

"I've met some of those people and it might be hard to believe, but sometimes it's an issue of good people with good ideas with big blind spots."

*      *      * 

It's unpopular in the polemic world of edublogging to step out and say, "Maybe the enemy isn't so much an enemy as much as a misguided protagonist." But I wonder if maybe the real issue in education reform isn't that people are following wrong ideas as often as they are using good ideas, strategies and methods in the wrong context.

The following is a list of things that I've railed against and labeled as wrong when the truth is they each have a place in the right context:

• Rewards: Daniel Pink does a great job describing the few situations where a reward works. If it's short-term and the task is very basic and not necessarily intrinsically rewarding. For example, I hate to mow the yard, yet I have an easier time mowing it if I can promise myself a half hour of reading time afterward. 
• Multiple Choice Tests: The biggest failure in multiple choice is that it's being used in the wrong context. We use the tests to judge rather than inform. Finland uses multiple choice tests as an exit exam to determine larger trends in education. True, the tests are far from perfect, but they are decent at demonstrating reliably the larger trends in what needs to be changed. 
• District Office Personell: I've ripped the D.O. in the past. I've mentioned why their jobs are useless. What I'm growing to understand is that they are often qualified people with great ideas, but they are placed in a context of compliance rather than leadership. 
• PLC: I hated the concept when I saw it in action at my first school. (I mocked it for sounding like a drug - alongside PCP or LSD) Last year, however, I experienced a true Professional Learning Community with shared values, transparency and an intentional focus on providing meaningful intervention. It was all about the context. 
• Politicians: My students had a chance to get to know a few legislators. What we found were people who genuinely believed in what they were doing and wanted to make a difference. The context of a broken system had curtailed their idealism and forced them into a place of either legislative impotence or bargaining against their beliefs. 
• Lectures: I used to blast lectures. Then I heard a great sermon, I watched some amazing TED and I took the time to sit down and truly listen to the "I Have a Dream" speech. Talks and I realized that lecture had a place. We need stories. We need speeches. The issue is context. How often do we use lecture and where does this strategy belong?
• Merit Pay: It's not a bad idea if a job is based upon economic norms. However,  in a social context with people who are driven by a desire to educate rather than make shiny objects, it is a colossal failure. The issue isn't the idea. It's the context. 
• Home-schooling: When I first began blogging, I blasted home-schooling and un-schooling. Then I met people who had created an amazing context where authentic learning was happening. (The same goes for those who are quick to attack public school teachers as thieves, Nazis, slave-drivers or child-abusers) 
• Edublog Awards: I recently wrote a post that was critical of these awards. The truth is that they do a great job promoting awareness among the blogging community. The problem is the context. It's a bad "place" for me to be when I'm in what feels like a hyper-competitive environment. 
• Common Assessments: There is a real value in sharing data, planning together and creating assessments that are shared across a grade level. The problem is when they are top-down, hierarchical and based upon a multiple-choice framework. 

I could continue the list, but you get the idea. None of those are wrong. The real issue is the context. However, when I attack ideas rather than the context of implementation, I grow close-minded. I miss the nuance and the paradox. I fail to build bridges with the misguided protagonists. And most of all, I fail to see how often I am the misguided protagonist, bumbling through a Don Quixote world of education.

 

unvarnished

Transparency has become a buzzword in education circles. It's used to justify sharing one's data, talking about insights or simply being oneself. It's a fun word, embraced by both the rigid traditionalists and the far-off progressives. I've used it myself to describe my approach to online honesty. I'm starting to wonder if maybe transparency is a little cheap; if maybe it's a counterfeit for vulnerability, used to keep people just close enough without truly getting to know me.

Here's the deal: I haven't been blogging much lately. I could easily point out that I'm working on a A Wall for Zombies and co-writing a novel with my wife as well. I could explain that I'm busy and that I'm overwhelmed and that the autumn dying light begs me to slow down. I could mention all of those things and I'd be right. I'd be transparent. It would look very honest and honorable. Yet, in the process, you would miss out on the chance to know me.

Enter vulnerability.

See, the truth is that I'm a little shaken right now with my writing. I got a rejection letter from a publisher regarding Drawn Into Danger. It was impersonal, professional, a tidy little form letter telling me that my work just wasn't what they were looking for. It was, in a sense, a print version of "it's not you, it's me." I cried. In my insecurity, I looked on Amazon to see how many reviews any of my books have gotten. The numbers were minuscule.

I started thinking that maybe writing just wasn't my thing. I considered dropping the blog, abandoning my manuscript, moving away from Twitter and embracing television with open arms. Maybe I could join a Fantasy Football league.

Yeah, I went there. Extremely immature. Slightly unstable. Dripping in shame. But that's where it spiraled down to. For all my talk of intrinsic motivation and writing out of one's identity, I sought after any external sign I could find that I was doing well.

I'm having a hard time writing.  No, that's not it. I'm having a hard time being public with my writing. It doesn't help that this is the Edublog Award time.  While some people can embrace the recognition, I have a hard time not feeling like it's the start of Dodge Ball and I'm scared of being chosen last.

Add to this the fact that I'm in a really uncertain place in my career. I'm a part-time teacher, part-time coach and all the while I'm struggling to make sense out of what I believe about education. I have never claimed to hold all the answers, but I'm hitting moments when I'm not even sure I have the right questions. I miss my own classroom. True, I get to teach lessons and do small group pull-outs, but I miss being the leader of my own tiny community.

Add those two factors together and I'm having a hard time blogging about learning. I sit down before an empty blog post and I'm struggling to write with my typical off-the-cuff reckless abandon. I'm doubting myself. I'm doubting my beliefs about learning. I'm struggling to write much of anything.

The crazy part is this: If I had stuck to transparency, I would have walked away entirely. I would have written a post about moving on to other interests and then I would have smiled at the kind words after the swift goodbye. Instead, I tweeted out about the pain of the rejection and in the midst of the vulnerability, I was embraced by tweets affirming my ability to write. The next day, I had an instant message exchange with the honest and articulate Michael Doyle, who reminded me that I could not walk away from writing if I tried.

It feels almost dangerous to advocate for teacher vulnerability in the classroom. However, I've found that deeper change occurs with students when I'm able to be vulnerable with my students in the following ways:

• Letting them know that their behaviors actually hurt me. Not in a whining way. Not in an accusatory way. However, in a very real, personal, strong way, I will tell a student, "I was hurt by those words and I'd appreciate if you didn't get that route again." Nearly every time, they respond with humility. 
• Letting students know when something difficult is going on in my life. I remember saying to my class, "My son is going in for surgery tomorrow and I'm scared to death. I won't handle humor the same way as I typically might." 
• Being vulnerable about my own difficulties in learning. I tell students, "I struggle with basic computation because I flip-flop the numbers all the time. For that reason, I've always been slow in math. If you see me screw-up, please alert me to the problem." 
• Apologizing when I screw up. Transparency would say, "this is what happened and here's why it won't happened again." Vulnerability demands a certain level of humility that cannot occur unless a teacher is willing to own up to their own humanity. 

 

I have a fluency lesson that I stole from a co-worker. The slides we use are totally different and I modified the rubric to fit my context better.  I also "flipped" the fluency to have some passages that are all-in-a-minute versus how-long-does-it-take-you-to-read-it. Sarah didn't force the lesson on me. She didn't demand that I pull out the iPods and have kids practice it that way. We shared feedback, but we didn't pour over pages of data while throwing around words like "achievement,""accountability' and "transparency."

Sarah took my idea of mental math and discourse podcasts and made it her own as well. She thought the questions were a little abstract for little ones (they were) and she felt like it would help for language acquisition if we used sentence stems for some students.  Javi pointed out four or five ideas that I had totally missed in the process. Each of us refined the lessons based upon the feedback of one another.

We share our lessons. We bounce ideas back and forth. However, it doesn't happen due to a process, a procedure, a rule or a structure. It happens because of trust. We trust one another enough to share without being scared of being judged or of someone jacking a lesson and taking credit it themselves. We trust one another enough to say "that's not working" or "I was wondering why you . . ." and we know it's worth the potential relational conflict in order to help students learn.

It's common. It's the shared space - mentally, socially and professionally - where we meet together to share both the personal and the practical sides of teaching.

It's a shame that "common" is one of those beautiful words that people have hijacked to mean anything but common. It's a thin veneer over the power-driven, hierarchical system that strips away teacher autonomy. The power-brokers confuse uniformity for unity, standardization for standards and efficiency for effectiveness. I've witnessed the following standardized approaches being used in the name of being "common":

• "Common configurations" where teachers have to use Word Walls, Six Traits, Blackboard Configurations and other physical layout requirements without having a voice in the processs
• "Common curriculum" where teachers start with a lock-step scope and sequence and eventually have "shared" lesson plans across the grade level
• "Common assessments" that are not planned, implemented or analyzed by the teachers, but by a group of compliance experts

There is power in a common space. It's what fuels innovation. It's what leads to true professional development. It's the grassroots change that leads to powerful transformation. However, common is not common unless it is democratic, horizontal and respectful of the autonomy of teachers. Common ideas go viral, because they are good and they respect the process of contextualizing good ideas to each environment.

 

I've been sick for the last four days, resulting in a constant fever that fluctuates between a hundred and one and a hundred and three degrees. Yesterday, I struggled with taking a nap. I started to shiver. My teeth were chattering. All I could think about was how cold I felt. So, I grabbed my Giants hooded sweatshirt and wrapped up in the warmest blanket I could find.

Christy didn't agree with my approach. She wasn't as concerned about my comfort as much as my safety. She checked my temperature (one hundred and four degrees) and had me take Tylenol and eat ice chips. I didn't want to drink water, because it hurt to swallow. I didn't want to eat ice chips because I already felt cold (I've heard conflicting thoughts on the ice chips).

My temperature dropped back down to one hundred and two. It was still not ideal. It was still not in the comfortable range. However, as a result of my discomfort, I avoided dehydration and I was able to finally get some sleep.

*     *     *

So, this has me thinking about the classroom. I've noticed that sometimes in the context of an "affective filter," or in recognition of a low-SES status or in the name of self-esteem, we design a system of comfort rather than safety. I've seen teachers who will not tell a kid that his or her answer is wrong, because the teacher is afraid the student will be embarrassed. I've seen teachers who allow quiet kids to stay quiet all the time, because they're shy and introverted (though the extroverts get sent to time-out for being always-outgoing). I've seen an over-reliance on scaffolding out of a fear that students will give up if they find the problem too hard.

I'm not entirely opposed to having a comfortable classroom. Learning should be enjoyable at times and comfort plays a major role in it. However, the true litmus test should be safety. Instead of asking, "Is this too hard and will they give up?" a better question would be, "Is this the kind of classroom community where kids feel safe enough to make mistakes, fail and try again?" Instead of saying, "She's shy and I won't call on her," a safer way might be to say, "Her voice matters and she needs to face her fear."

Critical thinking is often uncomfortable. Debates and discussions can stretch students to a place of mild anxiety. Creative problem-solving often gets frustrating. Reading challenging works can feel, well, challenging. However, if students experience a true sense of safety, along with purpose, freedom and belonging, then they will venture into the uncomfortable and learn more in the process.

 

The neighbor kid climbs up on his swing set and yells down to Joel. Though they live feet apart, the massive wall has prevented them from knowing one another. Initially, it feels intrusive.  His voice is in my backyard. His presence is interrupting my intimate game of soccer with my sons.  For all my talk of community and open spaces, I'm finding this interaction to be intrusive and unnerving.

As they talk, though, I can appreciate it for what it is: a community interaction, filled with layers of diversity (age, race, experience, culture) between two kids who understand the value of separation and proximity.

As Joel continues to talk, Micah moves inside. He slides the door shut and picks up a book.  He's not anti-social per se.  It's just that he needs a small space that he can call his own.  He needs to process his day through deep introversion.

*     *     *

Every classroom that I've ever taught in was a fully enclosed space.  We had windows that wouldn't open and doors that were supposed to remain closed.  We were surrounded by walls without ever considering half-walls, gates or multiple doors.  Often, the walls become a metaphor for the lack of freedom (intellectually and physically) that students experience.

It's easy to advocate for tearing down the walls.  They tried that back in the seventies to mixed results. Like Micah, I would have had a hard time with the noise, the movement and the lack of physical boundaries in open enclosures.  I need a space to be myself.  I need a community to be my class and I need a room to be my classroom.

I like the impermanence and flexibility of gates.  Real gates.  Not the locked-up, constantly closed kind that one finds in a gated community.  I like the notion that there are boundaries to compliment open spaces.  I like the idea that one can move freely, but also have a space to belong.

What if schools were designed less like walls and more like gates? Here's an initial, sketchy list:

• Students would experience structure, but would have the freedom to personalize the structure and find their own route
• Classes would work together, but the gate would be opened to community collaboration.  There would be a shared place to meet, but a chance to serve outside the walls of the room. 
• In terms of curriculum, students would have fewer, loosely structured choices so that they could find their own route to customize what they are learning
• Classrooms would have a flexible design so that there would be shared walls, half-walls and windows that open
• Rules would exist, but the context would provide an opportunity to move outside of the rigid grid of Zero Tolerance
• Students would feel a constant tension of freedom and safety.  Sometimes the tension would feel like balance.  Other times, it would feel like cognitive dissonance.  Either way, it would feel real.

Any thoughts?