Think Like a Teacher

Recent revelations about Penn State and its fabled football program leave me with many questions about roles, adults and children, authority figures, and more. Most of all, as an educator, I think about the decisions that are at the core of education, decisions about how we prioritize our attention every day.

When does correcting culture take precedence?

The culture of our classrooms is more influential than any lesson strategy, study aid, pedagogy plan, or self-adjusting app for ensuring that our students learn what they need to thrive. As in any culture, the subtleties of what is unacceptable, preferred, or revered guide what we do in our classes. Even among teens who claim to “do their own thing,” there is a culture of what is lame and what is cool. As teachers, we develop a sixth sense of culture, a sense that tells us when cultural shifts demand that we temporarily delay content while we readjust the path of culture. On September 11, 2001, many of us stopped what we were doing in the interest of culture as breaking news spread through the school. We dropped the lesson plan, changed the homework assignment to “watch the news and hug your family,” and tried our best to answer all the questions.  In elementary classrooms, classroom culture adjustments are as frequent as bathroom breaks as young students learn how to ignore disruptions, “keep their hands to themselves,” treat others kindly, or simply listen. We teach and tweak classroom culture before we teach anything else.

Developing that sixth sense before culture goes completely awry is one of the intangibles we cannot easily explain to a student teacher — or even to parents. When I mentored beginning teachers,  this was one of the  most challenging and persistent topics of our conversations. But I gave credit to newbie teachers as they voiced  their feelings that something was not right, even if they did not know what to do about it. Their “sixth sense” was emerging.

I have to wonder what happened to Penn State’s sixth sense. How did they miss the alarms that culture was out of whack? I hope our teacher sixth sense is far more attuned. Young lives — and learning — depend on it.

[Full disclosure: I have a graduate degree from one of Penn State’s campuses, but I have never been a PSU football fan. Maybe my sixth sense was working?]

I have previously posted perilous predictions comparing how a five year old boy I know sees the world today and what his 2025 mindset will be. I continue with a few more thoughts as I head home from a busy week at ISTE2012.

2012 – Music comes from the big screen, the phone, the iTouch, the computer, and the backseat DVD : 2025 – I have music in my head all the time

2012 – I learn what I like by choosing an app : 2025 – I choose my school cohort — and plan college and job– to fit what I like to learn.

2012 – I Facetime my cousin on the computer, iPhone, or big screen : 2025 – I say my cousin’s name when I think about him, and I hear him answer me.

2012 – I have friends and cousins in different states : 2025 – I friends who speak to me in different languages, and I hear what they mean.

2012 -playlists are what mommy and daddy choose : 2025 – Life is my playlist.

2012 – I love my teacher : 2025 – Teacher? I remember those. I hadn’t heard them called that since middle school.

Want to venture a prediction — so the future can laugh at both of us?

I know a five year old boy. He will graduate from high school in 2025, assuming we still have high schools. With all the changes occurring in technology,  funding, and public education policy, who dares to predict what this five year old will see during his K-12 years. (Arguably, education’s slow pace of adaptation could mean we will see very little change!) Each year, Beloit College publishes a mindset list for college faculty about the incoming freshman class. What would be on the mindset  list of today’s five year old? — and what dare we predict may be his mindset in 2025? I venture some wild predictions, knowing full well that they are likely to be laughable long before this five year old is even out of elementary school. My musings are formatted:

2012 – mindset of today’s five year old : 2025 (or another year) – related prediction

Here we go:

2012 -all interfaces are touchable or talkable : 2025 – I just think it and it happens or explains why it cannot happen.

2012 -I swipe away what I don’t like : 2025 – I see, hear, or experience only what I DO like.

2012 – Maps talk : 2018 – There is no such thing as “map skills.” Direction and location are experienced, never represented in 2D.

2012 – Words talk when I touch them: 2025 – Text constantly changes/evolves as I “read” and adapts to my thoughts about what it says

2012 – My fingers change how things look : 2025 – My eyes and mind change how things look.

2012 – I “play a level” to move ahead : 2020 – My level is always a perfect challenge match for me, even at school.

2012 – I can repeat a level if I want to find all the magic coins and tricks : 2017 Levels change so when I return, I must learn something new.

2012 – Books and apps talk : 2015 –  I talk back, and it responds.

2012 – Mom and Dad are “connected” to something via gadgets all the time : 2017 – I am connected to ALL devices from my own device ALL the time — even at school.

2012 – I control the backseat movie, the app, the game :  2020 – I control the start and stop of school.

2012 – My preschool classmates “graduate” with me : 2025 – My “class” has constantly changing membership, and I belong to cohorts for dozens of places, times, interests, and ages.

To be continued…

From a dusty basement into the palm of my hand comes the story of TeachersFirst, snapped into a plastic case. As one usually impatient to have “archives” of anything important in electronic format, I will attempt to share the feel of this artifact with you virtually.  What I cannot convey is the stunning moment of impact I felt seeing what this puzzle has to say about teachers and teaching during the fourteen years since it announced the 1998 mission of TeachersFirst.

The question, “Puzzled by the Internet?” on the top of the box says it all. Many of today’s teachers were not in the classroom in 1998 — except possibly as students. It was a time when only about half of the teachers I knew had ever used Google and many were innocently hooked on AOL. Web pages were text-heavy, and no one anticipated Twitter or blogs. How all this Internet stuff was supposed to fit into the world of chalk, worksheets, and VCRs was a mystery. The people at the Network for Instructional Television (NITV), now called The Source for Learning, talked to teachers and found out that they wanted help navigating and understanding how this new-ish thing called the Internet could help them teach (and learn). So TeachersFirst happened.

I hear you laughing now. When I saw the box, I laughed out loud. I remembered that TeachersFirst had given away these cute (and challenging) tangram-type puzzles, but somehow I had forgotten the question that had been printed on the top. This little puzzle is Teaching 1998 in a time capsule. I think I had better keep it in my desk drawer as a reminder of all that has happened since.

My mind fast-forwards to 2012. We would need a new promotional giveaway every three to six months of we want to snap the mysteries of changing technologies into a box with a cute question on top. Even the messages of last summer are too old, though teachers quietly confide that they haven’t had time to “catch up” yet!  I wonder what we will be laughing at in 2015. One thing is for sure: we should back up our blogs and keep archives of what we say today.  Maybe we should bury digital time capsules of the giveaways at ISTE 2012. If nothing else, it will be good for humor therapy, assuming the file formats are even legible.

Happy 14th birthday, TeachersFirst.

The WSJ reported on an open course experiment offered by Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun last fall. The results: of the couple hundred on campus students and the 160,000 who “took” the course for free — online, 210 earned perfect scores on the final exam. All of them attended the course via the free, online option. You can read the details, aptly titled “Watching the Ivory Tower Topple” as long as WSJ keeps the article online.

Our society is accustomed to asking about degrees and experience to match people to jobs and opportunities. HR expects the checkboxes: HS, BA/BS, MA/MS, etc.  The currency of learning has always been “credits” (small change) toward “degrees” (larger denominations, i.e. larger BILLS ~ great double entendre!). If education can be delivered openly to anyone, anywhere, how will that change the way we decide who is “qualified” for a job, a volunteer role, even contract work as a landscaper?

It’s not about digital immigrants vs digital natives. It’s about willingness to taste something new.

Five year olds don’t like to try new foods. Some are unwilling to touch a food simply because it is green or “looks funny.” If it does not look like macaroni and/or cheese, the five year old mouth clamps closed. Fortunately, with a little coaxing, that stubborn little macaroni man will grow out of this phase.

Adults who are taste-averse about new applications of technology are worse than five year old macaroni mavens. Yesterday I heard a tale of unwilling technology “taste testers” in a highly respected university setting. This university was asked to evaluate various curricula for use in a certain type of early childhood program. As professionals, their taste testing is more than personal preference. It is a formal assessment of the quality of the curriculum “meals” being offered.

This group of curriculum food critics notified the creator of one curriculum that they simply will not “taste” that curriculum because it is not available entirely in a print format.  The curriculum, in fact, is much more than a print document. It is an interactive tool that uses ongoing formative assessments of student progress to recommend the next curriculum objectives for EACH child and simultaneously offers several possible activities that can be used to help that child (or a class) achieve the next developmentally appropriate objective. Why isn’t it in print? Because it is interactive, data driven, and dynamic. You simply can’t make a print curriculum “book” that flips to the correct page based on what  a child did today in class. This curriculum is steeped in technology to make learning work. Imagine that.

But the highly respected five year olds won’t taste it because it looks funny and is not printed macaroni and cheese.

I have no idea who has given the five year olds permission to run the university evaluation project, but I hope someone will eventually help them outgrow their five-year-old, finnicky attitude. At this rate, they would have us teaching our children to do nothing but string macaroni bracelets well into the 21st century.

Please pardon this bit of a rant. Some weeks end on a sticky note.

The day after the State of the Union, in the midst of presidential primaries,  and at the height of school budget (cut) announcements for the coming school year, I find myself itching to mimic Judith Viorst’s classic poem. I even found a handy online form for students — and teachers(?) — to write their own versions modeled in the same format.  Here is my first crack at it. Try one yourself…and pass it on. Maybe even post yours on Facebook (!).

If I were in charge of the world
I’d make thinking something to brag about and write about.
Instead of “like” or “rate,”
The options would be to reason and respond.

If I were in charge of the world
There’d be art and poetry breaks in every office and warehouse,
live music playing in every Walmart,
and open ended questions during every newscast.

If I were in charge of the world
You wouldn’t call any class a “special” or an “elective.”
You wouldn’t make kids choose between chorus and sports.
You wouldn’t have budget cuts
so obviously done without thinking.

If I were in charge of the world.

“The only way to do justice to our onscreen lives is by summoning exactly the emotional and moral clarity that can’t be found on any screen.”

-Pico Iyer, “The Joy of Quiet” in the New York Times, Dec. 29, 2011

 Amen.

I think a lot about what it means to be in touch, connected, and able to synthesize all that bombards my mind and  screen daily, nightly, weekly, constantly.  I love being able to see and read and listen to so many more voices and images than I could even a decade ago. But I  yearn for the disconnected days Iyer prescribes. As teachers and model learners, we have an extra responsibility to excavate the issue of finding clarity, digging deeply in front of our students (and our own children).

For a moment I indulge in public excavation:

Should being “in touch” occasionally mean something tactile?

Why do some blogs make me long for time to just look at and wonder about things?

How can I seam all the pieces together better?

Do our kids ever have a chance to seam things together or dig deeply to form clarity? Should we artificially require them to do so  or wait for them to feel an intrinsic drive to do so on their own?

School rarely offers the Joy of Quiet. Frenetic School — where most students live a double life, publicly doing what they should while secretly doing what they want below the desk — erases any time for the Joy of Quiet.

Sometimes the lyrics of a song validate my thoughts and provide the seams, stitching clarity. Sometimes it is the words of a character in a novel. More often today, it is a someone’s blog post that starts the sewing machine of my mind. But I know to look for and relish these moments as Joys amid the din. I know to walk away from the screen and take a walk with the sounds of the lake or perhaps an iPod.

Our schools need to facilitate the Joy of Quiet, too. And I don’t mean an old lady whispering “hush” in the library.

I know you. I have known you since you were 7 (or 8 or 10). You can act like an idiot, dress like a hooker, talk like a sailor, and saunter through these school halls flexing your freshly-sprouted muscles, but I knew you when you sat on the floor for story time and whispered in my ear that there really is no Santa Claus.

I am excited for you. I see you questioning who you are and trying out new identities. I see you beginning to dream of a world beyond school. You ask me questions about that world that I cannot answer, but we can explore them together. As long as we who pretend to control your life make our classes seem relevant to that world, you humor us by participating. Occasionally, you let us see that you actually like learning.

Does it matter that I knew you before grade 6? It helps. Could a teacher new to you know you as well? Probably. Does the very act of transition to this middle school  threaten your progress just by removing you from the K-5 learning home where you sat on the floor?  There is a study that says it hurts your academic progress to move to this middle school instead of remaining in the same building where you abandoned Santa Claus. I am fortunate that my job as teacher of gifted spans grades 2-8 in several buildings. So I know you, no matter which grades are in the building around us.

I would argue that it is relationship that defines your learning experience. You need someone who knows you. You need someone who knows that today’s cocktail party outfit is just a trial balloon of your sexuality (and who will tell you when it is not appropriate for school). On the inside, you are still the person who pretended to be a cat for the class play and who likes to read Shel Silverstein poems. You are also the mathematician who showed me a different way to solve that word problem and the computer geek who figured out html as a hobby.

You are the lucky one. You achieve because you have adults who know you and notice you. You have history with us. Your parents who know us, too. No matter how much the experts study and mine the data about you and your classmates, I know you. I cannot wait to see what you become long after our time together here.

If  our students are the digital natives, and policymaking powerful are the arriving settlers in the New Digital World,  what kind of feast are we celebrating this Thanksgiving?

After a long year (or decade) of trying to understand each other and make peace about what learning really is, are we finally sitting around the same table to celebrate a bountiful harvest? As some spokespeople from the Old World seem to be wavering about  using exclusively test-driven methods, we see signs that some have come to appreciate alternate ways of harvesting learning. The corn of this New Digital World is the creating/sharing web. Look at the bountiful spread on the table this Thanksgiving. We truly have much to give thanks for:

• Free tools for teachers and students. Beyond the freemium munchies, we actually have heaping servings of wikispaces and Edmodo and so many dishes we cannot fit them on the table, some without advertising garnish.
• Mashed up potatoes of every kind. The Goo(d)gle Earth has brought forth quite a harvest.
• The centerpiece: A turkey we all agree IS a turkey and need not weigh and measure to tell that is ready. At least for today we can call it learning without measuring its precise statistics. Breathe in the aroma of learning.

Oh yes, the cranberry sauce: the teachers. Without cranberries, the feast lacks color and the catalyst to so many tastes.

May this feast continue and become a tradition. We would have reason to give thanks for a long time.