Kids Are NOT Numbers: When the Test Score is Wrong

My son and daughter go to a great school.  We bought our house based upon that fact.  The teachers are thoughtful and the administration is progressive and responsive to the needs of the community.  But a recent testing error nearly cost my son a place in the gifted program.

As last year drew to a close we were informed that many of the students in my son’s 2^nd grade class had received unusually low scores on the MAP test.  We were assured that the students would be retested, the error corrected in their records and there would be no other adverse effects.  No answer was given as to why so many students had anomalous scores and I never really felt that there needed to be.  It happens.  

Yet meanwhile in the background, the bureaucracy was rolling along and the placement for the gifted programs in the district had begun. There decisions were based upon test scores and teacher recommendations. Yet when we called to ask how the situation would affect his placement we were told we would have to wait for a retest.  Placements were made and no spots remained in the program.  Done. 

When summer came we called the district to ask what would happen when school resumed.  We were told that the person responsible for testing was a ten month employee and would not return until the start of school.  I was growing concerned.

The school year began we hadn’t heard from the district, but we were contacted by his new 3^rd grade teacher and his teacher from the previous year. The two had talked and they were pushing for him to be retested and his placement reviewed. The heroes of this story are the teachers who applied this internal pressure on the district.  The testing took place and three weeks into the year, my son was placed into an accelerated math course.   While he qualified for other courses, no space was available.

As the year progressed, he has been moved into two other accelerated courses  as space became available and he is, for the first time, loving school.  On his last self-evaluation he is most happy with math because it is so fun and that he likes school a lot this year. Things worked out, for him.

Of the other students in his class, none made it into the gifted program. I wonder how this has affected them?   I wonder what might have happened if we never heard about the testing error or if I hadn’t been a teacher aware of how to navigate school bureaucracy. I wonder what would have happened if his teacher hadn’t known him (better than any test could) enough to know that the score was wrong.  I wonder why no one else questioned how his reading and math level appeared to drop by 3 full grades.  But for this placement would anyone have noticed?

So as it stands my son is in ¾ of the classes that comprise the gifted program.  He is in his same classroom but travels to another teacher frequently throughout the day.  He is really happy, happier than in past years. The whole situation came about because for a moment in time he was reduced to a number, one that just happened to be completely wrong. 

Kids are not numbers. 

Mind the Gaps: Transitioning from "Me" to "We" in the Classroom

I have been making substantive changes in the way that I am teaching this year.  Chief among these changes has been an effort to tranform my Amerrican Studies course from one that is lecture/teacher based into one that activity based and student centered.

 

In my world history class I went 7 1/2 weeks without a single lecture. The change was not difficult, in fact I find that the change has made the class more enjoyable to teach and made assignments easier to grade.  I spend much more time interacting with students and I have interactions with a far greater number of students each day. Making these lessons isnt hard because I have only been teaching this World History course for three years.  I see it with new eyes and I think in activities and learning activities. 

Making this shift in American Studies is a horse of a different color. I have been teaching US history in general and American Studies specifically, for all but 2 of my 17 years in the classroom.  As a result I have an well ingrained program with nice connections and themes.  There are thematic strands and there are connections to the literature built in throughout.  I havee taught the class using a thematic approach, the decades approach and I have even taught it backwards.  The downside is that despite the organiztion of the class, the core of the program has been pure lecture. Another level of difficulty is that the class in 55 students (with two teachers).  Any activity has to consider this factor. 

So the transformation has begun and I am pushing ahead.  I have been running through the lessons as they were every night and trying to build activities that keep the rich connections between the units.  I have been working dilligently to inject the unit to tunit themes that make my curriculum cohesive.  Ihave found that it can be hard work if only because when I am pressed for time or in a pinch I tend to default to my old lecture mindset. 

It is working and the process is getting easier. I feel the class changing; more from them, less from me.  These are some takeaways and  the things that I find are helping with the transition:

• Since each the activities are chunking topics and concepts. I find that it is very important for me to create effective transitions from one to another.  Here I have created mini lessons that make these connections clear and place the topic for the day into context.  I call this “Minding the Gaps.”  I have found that it works best with a visual so that they can see where they are and how it connects.     (It works so well I wonder why I don’t have a similar visual prepared for all of my units in all of my classes?) When I do it right, the flow from day to day and activity to activity is as smooth as it was when the class was more teacher centered.

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   Laura, my co-teacher is great about cutting throught the extraneous and telling the truth about how things work in class.  So I have made it a point to share my goals and my feelings about where I am.  This puts four eyes and two minds on the problem. It makes the change faster and more efficient. I have never been disappointed with the class’s ability to understand documents and expresses complex ideas.  They are getting it on their own.  I suspect that this will be more satifying to them in the long run.  I know it has been more satisfying to me to see them discover and understand.  My fears that something would be lost in the transition have been unfounded. 

 

• The idea of making the class more activity based is working for me and I feel it is working for the program.  The group of American Studies teachers meets every Monday and we have increasingly included creating activities for the art and achitectiture poritons of the class.   

Overall I am pleased with the resutls.  I am going through the enevitable “Why Didn’t I Do This Earlier” debate in my head but even that is a good sign.  There is a lot of work ahead, but I am moving forward. 

A New Take on Professional Collaboration

As the year goes on I am noticing that when faced with a common task, I address it in an uncommon way, or at least differently than I have in the past. I believe this is the result of the incredible amount of collaboration I have been involved in this year. (Props to my tweeps here!)  

 

This week it was time for my student intern Tamar to present her first lesson.  She is a senior who as part of our school’s educational intern program assists me in class.  The topic of the lesson was “Roman Social Structure: Plebeians and Patricians and the Twelve Tables”

Our planning began with just a basic lecture format.  As we continued to plan Tamar kept throwing out things to plan to the lesson. So I kept adding to them as well. Rather than play the role of limiting her and keeping the lesson basic as I usually do, at some point I decided to let her run with it, make it bigger and see what happens.  By the time we were finished we had a lesson that divided the class into groups, gave brownies to the patricians, confined the plebeians to the floor, increased the conversation among the students, and had them discussing the injustice of a variety of legal scenarios.  Oh, and it took less time than what I used to do, seriously. 

I gained valuable insight into how students think and view learning.  My intern Tamar gained an understanding or what it means to collaborate. Meanwhile the students in class went into the lesson with a completely different mindset knowing that the lesson was created by one of them.  I always want my class to have a culture of learning that is about “us’ rather than me and them.  I am proud of the discussions and collaboration that creating that environment generates. I wish I had thought to have students make lessons for me before.  It got me thinking…

While it is standard in the twitter-verse to see collaboration between teachers, I want to challenge you to bring students into planning a lesson.  I think it might make a great incentive for students or serve as a way to connect kids who are disengaged otherwise.  It is another way to hand them the reigns and let them control the path and procedures of their own education.

 Can I also mention that I love the idea of breaking down the divide between teacher and students as I was teaching about breaking down the wall between Plebeians and Patricians?  It’s kind of poetic really.  

Little Tweeks to Get a WOW!

My ancient Greece unit is solid.  It builds a foundation for future units. I had even built in some flexibility with multiple readings and activities so that I could vary my teaching from year to year but still address each learning objective. 

But nevertheless, the unit was flat.  I remember thinking that the unit needed a wow factor.  I wanted all of the learning to congeal into a powerful conclusion that would have them thinking about Greece weeks later.

 So I took all of the readings that I use in class and instead of using my standard teaching copy, I started from scratch with clean copies so that I could read them with new eyes. 10 minutes later I had what I was looking for.  It really only required one very small change. I changed order of readings in a way that allowed me to develop a new idea.  

I began the unit as I always had but included a new theme: “What are the qualities of a good leader?”  Then after a brief activity on the geography of Greece I assigned a reading from Plato’s Republic.  For those not familiar with it, it is a discourse leadership that promotes the idea that a philosopher leader is best.  I have always included the reading but it was more incidental to the unit than essential. We discussed it as a class and students finished by writing a personal belief statement as an exit slip.

Next we began preparation for our Athens and Sparta debate.  The kids love this. We focused on types of government but also kept in touch with the theme, “What are the qualities of a good leader?” I was amazed at how the debate frequently touched on the theme and was ecstatic when one student added to closing statements “Maybe the Spartans were better warriors, but that doesn’t mean they were better leaders, force isn’t leadership.”  Big smile from me.  J

 The finally tier of this sequence was an analysis of Pericles’ Funeral Oration.  Once again for those not familiar, Pericles, the leader of Athens, is speaking to the families of dead Athenian soldiers at a public funeral.  He masterfully describes the greatness of Athens, gives credit for the greatness to generations of soldiers past, implores the mourning to respect the  legacy of the dead by supporting the continuing war.  I decided to recreate the speech and have the students evaluate it as I did so.  To make it more fun we had some student lie on the floor to remind the class what this event was.  Others were told they were their families and should act the part.  I entered from the hall wearing a full toga and wreath.  The families jeered.  I stood on the desk but instead of reading Pericles I read the Gettysburg Address.

 This surprised even me. As I went into the hallway to create “the big entrance” a student mentioned that it sounded like Lincoln at Gettysburg. I remembered that Lincoln had used Pericles as a model while writing the Gettysburg address. Once in the hall I searched for it on my iPhone and went with it (two minutes to read, 2 minutes to explain and connect).  It was well received, and made a powerful connection that the students really liked.

As I dramatized parts of the speech students shared what they thought the text was saying.  We shared, analyzed and then moved on.  The next day the topic for that discussion was “Was Pericles a Good Leader?” The resulting conversation included Socrates, Plato, Athens, Greece, Lincoln, Obama, Congress, our Principal, and me. 

We had fun, lots of fun, trying to make sense of the past and the world we live in today.  I came into class the next day to students still debating. Later that week I ran into a student and a parent at the local Starbuck’s and the mom told me about how they had talked about Pericles and Congress at dinner.

Pure, Authentic Learning

Last week my friend Adriaan called me and asked if I wanted to go to a World War II re-enactment.  To say it was last minute is an understatement since he was in the driveway when he called.  Ten minutes later my kids and I were on the highway headed to Rockford for what turned out to be the largest WWII re-enactment in North America.

http://midwayvillage.com/photogallery.cfm?setid=1006

My kids never really asked much about where we were going and I never really thought to explain it because it was so last minute.  When we arrived I was planning on having to sell the experience, especially to my son who likes to say “I’m not really a history guy dad.”  I never needed to.  As we walked into the event there was a re-enactment of the allies liberating a French town that was so loud and so fascinating that we all just stared in awe.

I spent the rest of the day trying to keep up with them as they ran from display to display.  Each re-enactment group had been camped on location for days.  As we walked through the camps the “soldiers” explained their equipment, their trenches, why they were there, and what they were fighting for.  They walked through the trenches and climbed on the equipment.  My kids just soaked it in. 

On the car ride home it was quiet for about 10 minutes and then the questions started.  There were lots of questions. I answered them one after another.  This went on for the entire ride.  I love it when that happens. There was no need to generate interest or to distill some connection. I I was just giving them the knowledge they wanted.

Moments like these are gold in the classroom and in life too.  Creating this dynamic is what I do for a living. It was nice to have my children embrace the event and learn so much. It was pure authentic learning as it should be.  

I am pondering how I can make such pure interest a bigger part of my classroom every day.

How Ideas Work and What Memes Mean

I tell my students that some of the greatest ideas have cost people their lives. When a powerful idea takes wing and threatens other ideas, sometimes it is easier to kill to voice behind the idea than it is to kill the idea itself. 

Ideas though intangible, are real.  The have consequences.  They change people’s behavior, alter values and are the force behind the institutions that rule our lives. Ideas are behind wars and in extreme cases ideas can fly planes into buildings.

I always found it hard to solidify for them why this is. 

Several years ago I started doing a simulation to help guide this debate.  The set up takes 10 minutes and the debrief about 25-30 minutes.  I wanted to introduce a simple idea to the school and have my students watch as the idea spreads and people react to it.  So I chose this as my  idea and printed about 1400 of them, enough that they are everywhere, but not enough that everyone can get one. 

I hand them out to my students and ask them to give them to people in the halls.  They are not to say anything.  Just hand them out.  If people ask what they are for I tell them to say “It’s a smiley face, it smiles at you.”  The only other instruction I provide is that if they see one on the floor they should pick it up and hand it out again. By the time it is over they are everywhere. 

My plan was simple at first. People would accept it, or they would not.  Over time the discussion has developed into something more complex. We have gone from acceptance and rejection to how ideas spread, evolve and change.  Students have gotten angry as the simple message is twisted into something very, very different. 

Some examples:

    -One year the students, in reaction to a new ID policy, started to think the smiley face

was a protest movement and taped them over their id’s.  I had to reassure a few people

that it was not a conspiracy.

    -Another year students somehow got the idea that it was a coupon you could redeem for

 a free cookie.  What was great was that one of the cafeteria workers handed a few

 cookies before she was told not to.

    -One student described to the class that it was a protest about how fake people were and

 that the smiley face represent the false reality that we present and hide behind.

    -One year a protest anti-smiley appeared.    

    -Some reactions are consistent.  People begin to ask for them because they are limited

(this helps with teaching the laws of suppl and demand).  Many students, especially

 males reject the smileys, and further more attack the idea as stupid.

    -By the end of the week they are on folders, on lockers and at local restaurants.  People

 will argue about it.

    -I always have a few given back to me as a gift with thank yous for doing the exercise. 

Our discussion addresses several topics:

    -Who is likely to accept or reject this idea.

    -We talk about how people react when they reject it.

    -How people place greater meaning behind the idea than was ever intended. 

    -How people react to the individual presenting the idea.

    -How the reactions differ based upon who is handing it out, (Girls have more success with guys, especially freshman guys, go figure!)

    -How the social dynamics of groups affect the acceptance of the idea. -

    -How the spread of the idea would be affected if the idea were a skull instead of a smiley face.

When all is said and done, we have a framework for understanding what will happen as a result of the Enlightenment or the Great awakening or any other movement for that matter. We can understand that the effects of the progressives extend beyond whether they win or lose elections. It sets the tone for the diffusion of ideas throughout the rest of history. Best of all, when introducing new ideas in class, once I explain the newest -ism, they have a dynamic understanding of the process by which it diffuses into society.  (Which by the way the smileys do too. They end up in coffee shops, restaurants the mall etc., etc.)

My All School 9-11 Announcement

I was recently asked to read the school announcement recognizing 9-11.  I began writing something pretty historical but after reading through the first paragraph I realized that it was not what I was looking for.  So I focused on the idea that most of the students who would hear it do not have vivid memories of 9-11.

I remembered my parents talking to me about their connections to history.  I know where my parents were when JFK was shot.  I could tell you every one of the my father's stories of Vietnam.  Though they were not frequent, they carried a weight that made my mind record them verbatim.  I remember their faces as they told them.  I could see the truth of the experience in their eyes and hear the cracking in their voices as they spoke.  

I have not yet decided how I will be teaching 9-11. I keep weighing the best way to address it and explain its unique place in American History.  What became clear to me was that it had to begin with the students looking into the eyes of their parents and loved ones and listening. Then I wrote this:

   

Ten years ago, Americans woke and began their daily routines.  They were little aware at the time, that September 11^th, 2001 would become a turning point in American History.   The attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the plane crash in Pennsylvania resulted in the loss of 2,977 lives.  Since 2001 we as Americans have tried to make sense of this tragedy. 

The results of 9-11 are many; changes in the basic structure of our government, severe economic challenges, and the important debate about the balance between our individual rights and our desire to be safe.  While you may have been very young when these events happened, they affect you deeply whether you remember them or not. 

So this weekend, as our country recalls this tragedy, ask those who are close to you the true meaning of these events and how the world changed for them.  Understanding their answers is key to understanding the world in which you live.

Seeing History Through My Son's Eyes

My daughter and I are big fans of History.  On family road trips the sites that we pick are always historical.  We are frequent visitors to Presidential homes and libraries.   (Lincoln, Truman, Hoover, McKinley, Jackson so far.) Just being there is enough to spark our interest. 

My son is just wired differently.  There is no excitement and energy behind his visits to these places.  History for history’s sake is not his cup of tea.  Last week after leaving the Hermitage near Nashville Tennessee, he explained to me, “Dad, I’m just not a history guy.  I’m a Legos and architecture person.”  He then explained to me how the buildings were different and how they were built.   He liked the log cabins and loved the idea that all of the bricks for the house were made on site. “Like if you could make your own Legos!”   

As we walked through the house and grounds I was focused on the history and Andrew Jackson the man.  My son, holding my hand was having a completely different experience.  He liked learning about why the house had columns.  He wondered at what life in the log slave quarters might be like.  Once I realized this it was easy to draw him into the history.  It became a two step process.  Step 1: Notice the architecture.  Step 2: Tie it to history. 

Teaching History in class works exactly the same way.  This is why we need to allow students to communicate their likes and dislikes in class.  Sometimes it may feel like we are getting off topic but when we find what they value and care about, it is a doorway to help them connect with history. It is certainly not a waste of time.

As my son touched the building, walked the staircase and gazed into the slave quarters it became personal for him. He was connected.  He was engaged.  He wanted to learn.  

Packing Up and Moving to the Cloud

After a year on Twitter, having gained a fundamentally new understanding of technology and where it is going, I have decided that it is time to move to the cloud.  I realized that I needed to institute an information management plan late this school year.  I found that many of my files had multiple versions and edits.  I had files duplicated on my school computer, school network, home computer and a back up copy on a portable drive. The time involved making sure work was not lost and that various version were merged became unreasonable.  The use of multiple devices made it hard for me to access information across platforms and locations.

This is the 3 point plan I came up with.  It has already made my life much easier.

1.       Google Docs- By moving my word docs, the files there become master files that I can access and edit anywhere.  It allows me to share those files easily (and on the go) with students, coworkers or collaborators. It eliminates multiple copies and competing edits.  One wonderful side effect is that I did not foresee was how easy Google Docs would make keeping my website up to date.  In the past, updating a document on my website involved uploading the most current version.  The time involved was great and the process tedious. With Google docs changes are real time. The overall result has already been a massive savings of time.  The cost was zero.

There are still a few kinks to work out. I still have not addressed what to do with my Powerpoint files.  Google docs limits their functionality and their bulk would strain storage limits

(Note: By downloading the Offisync extension for Word you can edit Google Docs in Word.  This will be a more familiar format for most and can offer a wider range of functions.)

2.       Dropbox- This is a free download that allows you to create a common shared folder on all of your devices.  By placing a file in your Dropbox folder you edit it across devices.  It also eliminates the need to email files.   The share function will let you collaborate with people without the need to compare and rectify competing edits. I also found the share features helpful in sharing unit materials with students.  One the box is setup, I only need send the link.  Dropbox has been really helpful with Powerpoint files that can be large and troublesome in Google Docs.

3.       Evernote- Evernote is once again a free service that can be downloaded to you computer, phone or tablet.  It allows you to add and organize all of your data. Once uploaded, you can tag information making it easily searchable.  The Wow! Factor of Evernote is its ability to make text in a picture searchable.  By taking a photo of books that I have read and uploading it, I now have a database of books searchable by title and author. I can add my reviews and then share them with others.  The Google Chrome Evernote extension makes clipping and saving web pages easy.   The time savings comes from the ease in finding and accessing this information as well as the elimination of paper files and filing.  A premium service is available for those who might exceed the 60mg per month upload limit and for those who want to upload word or Powerpoint files.

My plan has yielded some great results. I have saved HUGE AMOUNTS OF TIME, which we all know is one of if not the currency of education.  Secondly it has streamlined tasks and created an ease that just makes my work more enjoyable.  I can now share and collaborate more efficiently.  The school year has not yet started and I have already gained back the time that this process took to implement.  

The Life Expectancy of a Lesson

I have to admit that I used to be a HUGE fan of LOST. It lasted 5 years. On the night of the last episode I was relieved.  Even though I loved it, I was ready to be done.  Seinfeld lasted 8 years.  Friends lasted 8 years. If you remember Moonlighting, you remember that it was over fast.  Number one show one year, three years later, gone.  The Beatles were only together for about 8 years.  Even Jesus only actively taught for three years.

Things have a time and a place.  Sometimes that time passes.  (Think bellbottoms, the mullet, legwarmers, the beehive hairdo and Glam Rock- also feel free to insert others here...)  If you were to dress as you did in high school today it would likely result in jokes, lots of jokes.  When a fad ends, though we make look at it fondly, we need to accept it and let it go.  If we don't we face the risk of becoming a relic.

We all know someone like this, the person stuck in the Grunge era or surfing the the internet on Netscape Navigator.  Well, maybe not that bad.  To sum up: things have an expiration date.  The best shows, good music, technology and even the way that we teach will one day be past its time.

This line of thinking led me to ask myself a hard question.  What lesson I need to retire?  Somewhere in my repertoire is something that was once great, but needs to be put out to pasture.  I weighed a lot of lessons.  I thought about the reasons behind why I do what I do.  When it was finally done I had chosen to retire a lesson that is one of my favorites.  It is my "Why Study History?" lesson.  The first one I teach each year.

Now, I love this lesson.  My kids leave the room talking about this lesson.  It is powerful and passionate but it lacks content. It lacks a historical take away.  It left them with no new skill.  It should be a discussion of history as an interpretive process.  It should discuss the fact that history is hard because they will not leave the room with definite answers like in math, but questions. They will be questions that I can't answer for them, that no one can answer for them.  They will need to answer these questions for themselves.

So that lesson has been retired. Permanently.  I will really, really miss it but I can do better in a way that teaches more and serves my students better.

So what lesson do you need to say goodbye too? Which one is your mullet legwarmer lesson? Which one is there that should not be?  Which one is not timely? Which content may be good but your vehicle of delivery needs rethinking? Can you let it go?

I'd love to here what you come up with.

5 Latin Quotes to Live By

5 Latin Quotes to Live By

by Shawn McCusker

Non omnia morir-

Not all of me will die.

As teachers we have the ability to leave behind lasting legacies of our work.  We give life to ideas and patterns of thinking that have true power.  What will you leave behind? What is it that you will teach that will survive well after you?  The ideas that we teach, the skills that we share, the processes that will demonstrate will survive long after we do.  

Gutta cavat lapidem-

Water hollows put rock

Of all the forces of the Earth, the simple movement of water may not be the most glamorous but is the most powerful in its persistence.  Mountains are laid low by the constant but simple effects of rain drops.  Grand Canyon, enough said. The process of education requires that we be very persistent in much the same way.  Focus on what is important and tenaciously pursue it.  Never quit.  

Ut sementem feceris ita metes-

As you sow so will you reap

In life and in our classes we live in a world that we create for ourselves. We live according to the rules that we create for ourselves.  Especially in the classroom, who we are and the lessons we teach become the patterns that run the class.  Create an environment of respect. Create an environment of cooperation. Create an environment of trust.  You will find that everyone in your class will benefit. In return your reward will be working in a place that embodies all of these characteristics.  

Et lux tenebris lucet-

And a light shineth in the darkness

Everyone has their stresses, worries and obstacles.  Every day we teach a collection of students who are bringing theirs into our class.  In what way does your class move them past this and draw them in to what you have to teach.  Classrooms that are a beacon to students allow them to put aside these obstacles and distractions.  Make your classroom a hopeful inspiring place.  


Vae Victus-
Woe to the vanquished

You are only defeated when you give up.  Year after year students will enter our classrooms and struggle.  Every year we will have to face them, address their needs and help them to overcome their .  Every day is a new challenge.  In between the times that teaching is so rewarding, it can be exhausting. When you get to that point take some time, reflect and find your passion.  Go read the letters of the of the students whose lives you have changed.  Focus on what you set out to do when you became a teacher.  Despite the difficulties that we face, the politics that arise, the time that we spend and all of the other realities of our job, in the end it is very simple.  Teach them well.

A New Direction

It has been a while since I have posted on this blog.  I know this is a common thing for teacher blogs.  Depending on where we are in the year, coaching takes our time, papers need to be graded and things need to get done.  When I last posted I decided that I need to make this blog more than just blurting out about something that I was thinking.  I think a lot.  I needed to cut out some things get a focus.  Just like at school.  There is a lot to do and there are a lot of distractions.  You have to focus on what is important.

So I have been thinking. I have to focus on a goal.  I have to keep it simple.  I have to cut out what is unessential.  Just like in a lesson.

So I decided to change the name of my blog to help me remember that.  From the moment I sat down to write the first entry here my purpose has been to grow as a teacher so that I can help my students to grow.  I want to use the past to make the future make sense.

I need to adapt to the world and the technology that is prevalent.  It is a language that the students can speak that we have to start speaking in as well.  (Would I not learn Chinese if I was teaching is China or French if I were teaching in France?) I need to understand how students view and interact with the world so that I can communicate to their understanding. I need to continue my own learning so that I can explain how the past has brought us to this moment.

There is so much to do to make sure that I achieve this goal. It is not a process that has an end.  I know that I will never be done.  (I used to think that was possible. "One day I will have good lessons and then I can just repeat them endlessly!" Ha! Sooo not the way it is.)

This is what I have decided this blog needs to be.  Where do I want to go and how am I going to get there?

Forward.

Whirlwind Thoughts on EdCampChicago

It has been two days since I attended EdCampChicago.  Immediately afterwards my head was spinning with all of the thoughts and ideas that the day generated.  It was the result of spending the day with so many passionate teachers, so full of ideas. My thoughts have slowed a little bit and I keep finding myself dwelling on a few things more than others. 

When the day started, the Atrium at Stevenson High school was full of teachers but they were spread around two or three to a table.  You could feel the excitement but as of yet people were not yet convinced that this was any different than your typical PD experience.  That changed in about 15 minutes.  By the time the topics had been proposed and the first session had begun it was clear the day would be different.  I will spare you the details of the entire day and just skip to a moment when I looked around and realized that something amazing was happening. 

In the midst of the final session, a new session broke out.  Teachers gathered in the Atrium where we had begun so seperately and a group of 30 to 40 of us started sharing our technology knowledge.  No one was offended that this impromptu session broke out.  People were taking turns and contributing what they could and taking what they needed.  No one had to be watched to make sure they were being productive, no one had to be in charge to keep the peace.  This was crowdsourcing, collaboration and sharing as I would hope to create it in my class. 

That is really point #2.  We did the planning and the learning.  There was not one star.  I benefitted from more people's input than I could count.  I gained perspective. This is really what I want my class to become.  I want to let them choose more.  I want them to decide how they learn and help each other in the process.  I want them to feel the control that the the participants at EdCampChicago valued so much.  I want magic to happen for them like it did for me. We did more than just learn about what our classes should be.  We modeled it without even trying. 

After pondering how natural it was, I am convinced that it is a model that can feel natural for my students.  

Teaching to the very end.

The last few weeks I have felt all of the typical end of the year stresses.  It is harder to get out of bed.  It is much more tempting to just go home after school.  But this year I have manages to prevent myself from succumbing to these tempatations. In fact I feel like the momentum I have is increasing because rather than holding on until the end of the year.  I have been implementing a new lesson, a new assignment or a new learning objective nearly every day.  I have been cataloging things that I have wanted to try since I first started using twitter last year and following #sschat early this year.  After going throught he intial lurker phase, and moving into the active participant phase, I have now moved into the implementation portion of the twitter cycle of development.  I find that the ideas and conversations that I have taken part in are now flowing into the things that I do and it isn't requiring the effor that I thought it would take. 

It has taught me some important lessons and reminded me of a few that I learned before but need to be reminded of.  First off, teachers need to direct their own growth, assess themselves and address their own needs in a way that no amount of school organized inservices can.  Secondly, teachers have to fulfill their obligations to the school board, the state and the government and they should, but there are other needs that we need to focus on that the powers that be will not nuture.  So we must.  There won't be inservices to address these needs, so we will have to do so independently. Finally, I have realized that when my mind is focused on growth, mine or the students, my classroom has a completely different energy about it.  In the last two months I have created a better vision of where I am going in the classroom than I have in the last four years and I am taking steps to get there.

It is for these reasons that my classes have been going really well lately. I have things to accomplish and I am not waiting until next year to get them done.

Wow. Osama bin Laden and the Power of my PLN.

I was just sitting down to make out my lesson calendar for the next two weeks.  It was a typical Sunday. I was finishing up a discussion with a few #sschat people when suddenly everything blew up.  It started when I received a tweet from the President's Press Secretary, a good person to follow if you are a social studies teacher.  Within minutes my twitter feed exploded.  In the 40-45 minutes it took for the President to speak I had already begun working with the #sschat people to frame the lesson for tomorrow and share resources to make it possible.  Tomorrow when i go into class I will not just be teaching a lesson that I threw together overnight and on the drive in to work.  I will be sharing a lesson that I crafted while conssidering the opinions of literally hundreds of co-workers and teachers.  I will be using resources and links that were shared and evaluated by professionals that I respect.  I am so eager to get into the classroom that I doubt very seriously if this insomniac will be able to sleep at all. 

This is the power of the effort that I have been putting in to Twitter and #sschat lately.  I do it because it yields such great results and because it has so drastically improved the power of my lessons and the efficiency of my process. 

Tomorrow night #sschat will debrief what we did in class today and discuss ways to teach these historical events.  The thought that is really spinning in my head even more than what I can accomplish tomorrow, is how much better I am going to be in the future when such a huge news story breaks.  

I need to get to sleep now, I hope.  This is why I am proud to be a teacher. 

P.S. I am absolutely sure that no one I worked with for the last three hours got any overtime pay.  This is what teachers do to serve their students.

The Last Living Act of Oliver Green

One of my schools most exciting events is Writers Week.  It is a week long celebration of writing in all forms.  Every period for one full week writers perform their work before a packed auditorium.  Many well know writers, screenwriters, poets, performance artists and musicians have taken part.  It's really pretty impressive. 

What is just as impressive is the number of students who take the risk of performing their writing in front of the entire school.  They read true stories, poetry, tales of tragic high school romance, staments of belief, fiction, fantasy class essays and really anything they have written that they are proud of.

This year our principal took part and nearly every department was represented by a faculty member.  I love the way that the event isn't about just the English department, it is a whole school event. Last year I told  student who wanted to perform but was afraid that if they would do it, I would too.  So true to my word I read the following story.  It is the true story of my Uncle Ollie and Aunt Elaine. 

 The Last Living Act of Oliver Green

It is probably best to start with the fact that Oliver Green is not my uncle. He and I are not related in any way by blood.  In fact I only really knew him for the last 14 years of his 91 year life.  

Ollie was the best friend of my wife’s grandfather.  They had been friends for years.  Ollie and his wife Elaine met and married at the same time my wife’s grandparents did.  They bought houses next to each other and looked forward to starting families.  My wife’s grandparents quickly had 4 children.  Elaine and Ollie did not.  They came to find out that Elaine could not have children and the family they dreamed about and planned for was not to be.   

They were both adopted by my wife’s family and became Uncle Ollie and Aunt Elaine.  The two of them watched their adopted nieces and nephews grow up attending every birthday, recital and play.  They attended every wedding, baptism and first communion.  When those children grew up and had their own children, Uncle Ollie and Aunt Elaine became their aunt and uncle too.  When I met my wife they became mine. 

I should probably also tell you that by the time I met him, Ollie had begun to experience periods of dementia that turned him from a lively, vibrant man into something much more distant and removed.  It was common for Ollie to experience hours long episodes of confusion.  For this reason, I listened intensely when he was himself and sharing his stories. His condition gave his words a fleeting quality, as though if you didn’t listen and hold on to each word, it word be lost to the abyss that could be minutes or seconds away.   I also listened to Ollie because he spoke to me with such kindness.  As a 19 year old interloper at a family Christmas party where I was not yet family, Ollie welcomed me and took me under his wing in a way that took away my stage fright but made me feel that I belonged.  This was just one of the many kindnesses that he showed me. On the way home that night my wife explained to me how Ollie was, or more specifically was not related, but also no matter what the genome said, he was her Uncle.

By the time I was really a part of this family, Ollie was gone more than not.  He would spend entire days without a period of wakefulness.  This was devastating to Elaine who watched the man that she loved and shared so much with just drift away.  Though he was always with her, she was very often alone. 

I would often sit with him hoping that he might show up and be fully himself.  Occasionally I would be rewarded and get a glimpse of the real man that lived in some dark recess of his mind. With time this became less and less common and eventually I just stopped waiting.  It would still sit with him, but I had lost the realistic expectation that he would arrive at any moment. 

The last time I saw him emerge from the fog was at a family party one summer.  He was sitting in the house with others around him when suddenly he engaged in the conversation as if it was a common occurrence.  He was warm and glowing and the room quickly filled as people spread the word about what was happening.  He shared stories of vacations 60 years past in vivid detail.  He filled the room with laughter.  He shined.  I listened trying to drink it all in.  The whole thing lasted for more than half an hour, just long enough for everyone to forget that he would soon be going away.  Then the haze fitfully descended and slowly enveloped him again.  First he searched for a word, then a name, then he stopped mid sentence and he was gone. It may not have been his last visit, but it was the last for me. 

Several years later the phone rang and despite my sorrow, I was not really surprised to find out that Ollie had died.  I had been resigned to it. In many ways he was already gone.  My goal for the funeral was to tell Elaine just how much I admired Ollie for the simple kindnesses that he had always shown me.  The time for that never came.  It was never right. So I never did. 

Later on as I was sitting talking one of his niece I heard the story of his final moments of life.

Have you ever wondered what your last moments will be like? I have often pondered what I would do with my last breath if it ever came down to it.  Would I say something deep and philosophically meaningful? What would I say to my wife? Would I leave a lesson for my kids? Would I be able to tell them the secret to a happy life?  Could I say something that would demonstrate how I feel and what they mean to me? Or would I be too overwhelmed and concerned about my own fate to worry about any of that?  Regardless, I know that I will not be able to beat what my Uncle Ollie did. 

As he lay there in his hospital bed, his family of nieces and nephews came to say their goodbyes.  He lay there surrounded by them but as usual, far away.  Then as the situation grew more dire. His wife moved in close to say a final goodbye to her friend, husband and partner of 52 years.  She leaned over and spoke to him softly and as she finished talking and kissed his forhead, he opened his eyes and smiled a wide smile.  His face and eyes had a focus and clarity that said “I am here now, I am with you.”  He didn’t say anything, he just looked at her and smiled for a while. Then he beckoned her closer, reached up with his hand, placed it on her side. The was silent as she leaned in to hear the words he was struggling to get out.  Finally he said “Tickle, tickle, tickle.” Then Elaine and the room erupted in shocked tear filled laughter.  When the laughter subsided he smiled and said, “there, that’s better, much better.” Then he leaned back, and though the smile stayed on his face, his eyes grew gray and he faded away for the last time. 

More than just being my Uncle, Ollie is my hero for giving, with his last breath, such a moment of joy to so many people and for giving such an eloquent message to his wife of how he wanted her to go on. He is my hero because in his final moment of life when he was channeling the last energy that was his to give he chose such an elegant act love.  I can only hope someday when the time comes that I am strong enough and that my mind is clear enough to give such a gift to those that I love.   

You Have to Own Your Growth!!!

You have to drive your own PD, no one else can do it.

I had decided on the title of this blog during the ride to school this morning. Then while I was about half way through writing it I was distracted by the fact that tonight’s #edchat was discussing similar ideas.  I took away a few great ideas as I always do but I became increasingly frustrated by some of the participants referring to professional development as something that needs to be imposed and requires mandates. Mandates?

In my classroom I have long abandoned the idea that I can force knowledge on my students.  They have to embrace knowledge and they have to want to learn.  I foster learning by making the content meaningful, connecting it to the realities of their lives and offering them choices within the classroom.  They need to own their learning.

Regardless of the reasons for it, schools do not often offer the same choices and opportunities for teachers.  It is my experience that PD is often generically crafted to meet the general needs of the staff, more like hints, and suggestions. If I were to make a list of the most meaningful moments of growth in my career I can’t honestly include one school sponsored initiative among them.  

When I came to my current school, I attended a four year long New Teacher Program.  It was geared toward helping 1st year teachers be successful and become effective.  I really think it is an effective way to get teachers started.  But for me it wasn’t exactly what I needed.  I was 13 years into my career.  Yet as time went on I found that the teachers were talented and they asked very introspective questions.  Their thoughts offered me a lens through which I could evaluate myself.  It was a real opportunity to grow, just not in the way the school had intended.

If you want to be an effective teacher you cannot rely on the school to make it so and provide you with the magic answer .  You have to take charge and own your growth.  A career’s worth of school run PD will not provide you with all that you need to excel.  Define what you need in order to grow and be effective, then address those needs. 

I love teaching. It has always been my passion. My passion to grow as a teacher grew from that.  

The Accidental Manifesto

In reading other people's blogs there comes a time when people lay out all of their core beliefs.  I tried to write this piece twice.  I kept stopping.  I just never felt that I could do better than I did in the writing that I will attach below.

Several years ago I was nominated for a teaching award.  The application required several long essays about your personal philosophy of teaching.  I had applied a few times before and I was not looking forward to the work. I put it off until literally the last moment.  So on New Years Eve of 2006 I rang in the new year by writing these answers for the application.  I had intended to just get it done so that I could honestly tell the student who nominated me that I did it. 

Sometimes you capture the ideas that you are trying to put on paper in exactly the right way.  I love it when that happens.

14.    Who was your best teacher?  Why was that teacher outstanding?  How has your teaching been affected by that teacher? 

This is the fourth time that I have been nominated for a Golden Apple Award in my career.  Each time has been an honor, but each time I complete an application I finish this question last and spend more time thinking about it than all of the others combined. 

The reason for this is that I never really had a feeling of connection with a teacher.  

In the past I have shared some moments that I remember from teachers who made an impact on me.  I remember Ms. Hamblin’s kindness and I wish that I could tell her what it meant to me at the time.  I remember how Mr. Neiweem handled the day after a friend and classmate was killed in a car accident.  I wish I was able to tell him about that before he passed away last year.  I remember a lot of moments from different teachers.  But the truth is I never really had that kind of relationship with a teacher.

I know that I am likely the reason for this.  I know that I kept teachers at a distance and avoided telling them all of the reasons that I was struggling in school.  I know that I pushed aside their efforts to reach out to me mainly because I was too proud to admit that I had anything wrong or that bothered me.      

Yet I write this because it has affected me deeply.  I want to be the kind of teacher who leaves an impression with his students.  I want to be remembered for teaching them something essential, but also for teaching them about life and our changing world.  I want to teach them how to figure out the truth from all of the different and conflicting messages that they are being bombarded with.  Mostly I want to reach them.  I want to reach past their distractions.  I want to be the teacher that won’t be fooled by a well crafted outer appearance, who gets to the heart of a person and then helps them to learn about the world. 

 I want their heads to explode with the things that I teach them about the world and how it works while showing them how to have a better life.  I want them to have my lesson on their minds hours after class is over.  I want to celebrate with them when they succeed and I want to help them when they hurt.

In this way, my teaching has been affected by what I didn’t have.  I have tried to become the teacher I wish I had. 

14. Part II- What are the most important competencies for the children you teach to achieve?  How do you help your students master them?  Paint us a picture in words of what goes on in your classroom. 

A student who walks out of my class is going to be mulling over a burning question, a question that compels them to seek out information for themselves and learn.  Then they need to think independently and critically about what they learn.  That is essentially what all education is about.  I teach them how to gather information and reflect upon it. 

All other competencies they may need are a subset of this goal.  If they can’t read or lack another essential skill, it prevents them from gathering information.  If they are distracted, it prevents them from gathering information.  If they have a learning disability, prevents them from gathering information.  If they are bored, it prevents them from having the desire to gather information in the first place. 

I could easily list a thousand skills that I have found my students in need of.  It is overwhelming to me the number of things that I need to be teaching them and giving to them and addressing with them.  So in order to simplify how I look at my work I have boiled down what I do to one simple focus:  What do they need in order to be able to learn? Then I teach them that. 

My Collaborative United States History classes are made up of Special Education students as well as regular Education students.  In these classes I have students who have behavioral disorders, emotional problems and other challenges in the same room with students who have scored in the low thirties on their ACT.   My alternative high school classes have students who are just out of rehab, some who live in their cars and others who are in their  late 30’s and 40’s.  They are so different and have such different needs that I just do whatever I can to get them past their distractions and teach them how to learn. 

If you were to come into my classroom you would see me soothing their anger, drying their tears and patting them on the back.  You would also see me teaching some how to read, giving others an idea of what else they could read to push themselves farther, or tutoring them about how to take tests.  Whatever it takes.    

But what I am really most proud of in my classroom is that if you came in you would see us laugh and joke around.  You would see us play.  You would see us sing or yell. You would see them smiling as often as possible. This is because the idea that learning is a solemn, solitary act of drudgery is ludicrous. 

I try to blow their minds every day.

          

14. Part III- Describe your planning process.  What are the critical factors you take into consideration when planning your lessons?

My planning process usually begins late at night because I am an insomniac and I stay up late into the night putting the pieces of the lesson together.  But it starts by asking myself “What do I want them to know?”  I look at the State Standards and what academic skills I want them to develop and then I fit that together with the content.  I think this is standard for most teachers, though, and is important. 

Whatever you teach has to mean something to them or you shouldn’t teach it.   

More important however is how the content and skills are presented and put into context for the students.  This is when I ask myself, “How can I make these things valid and meaningful for my students.”  The lesson has to resonate with what they know about the world and what they are experiencing today in order to take root in their minds.  I try to give the lesson an urgency in their life that will make it necessary to them.  A lesson about Chester Arthur is meaningless unless you do this.  Be honest, what do you remember about Chester Arthur?  Exactly!  But Chester Arthur was a friend of Teddy Roosevelt and both felt that the other betrayed a friendship.  Their personal fight changed America.  Add suffering the betrayal of a true friend and now the lesson has value.  They will listen for the outcome.  They will apply it to their lives because the live in the roiling world of high school friendships.  Now talking about their friendships, their lives and their families becomes the lesson and furthers our learning.  This is what I try to do every day. 

In time, my classes will start trying to guess how I am going to connect the lesson to their lives.  It is sort of a game that we play, but it is really them learning to make their own connections without me playing a hand in it.  I have gained some of the most useful information I possess by listening to the ways that they connect the information to their lives.   

At the core of teaching today is the need to know who you are teaching.  Who is in the seats in front of you?  I don’t mean their names and their faces, or even what year they are in school.  I want to know what their goals are and what keeps them up at night so that I can provide them with options and ways of achieving a solution or making their dreams real.  So a large part of planning my lessons involves gathering and then using what I have gathered.

14. Part IV- What do you see as the single greatest impediment to your influencing the development of the children in the classroom?  What do you do to overcome it?

The greatest difficulty to overcome in teaching is how effective the world is at grabbing everyone’s attention today.  Advertising is intelligent and flashy.  The media target markets to particular groups.  TV shows are racy and compelling.  The internet is teeming with exciting things to do and see.  It is all so endless.  You can’t finish it.  Cell phones, laptops and I-pods allow people to carry all of that with them where ever they go.  So when we are in class the internet, music and movies are right there in their bags and purses.  Their friends and families are within arms reach. 

In order to wrench their attention away from their lives for an hour we need to be powerful enough to compete with their I-pods and phones.  We are not just hoping that they go home, turn off the TV and do their homework.  We are hoping they turn it off in class.  We have to push ourselves to be more necessary than the media is.   We have to get their attention and show them that we are going to teach them something compelling and necessary every day. 

We can be better teachers and we can be more effective by setting the bar higher for ourselves.  We don’t just need to teach a sound lesson.  We need to market it to them.  We need to know their needs and show them how what we have is the answer to their life’s problems.  But even more so, we need to make sure that it really is the answer to their problems.  That can be hard but we can do it. 

We can teach them about the media today and how it works.  We can dissect popular culture.  Ultimately we can show them how the forces all around them effect them and play a role in their lives so that they can operate autonomously in a society hell bent on influencing them in everyway possible. 

     And it doesn’t hurt to have fun while you are doing it.