Think Like a Teacher

OK, so my ego bounced this week at being named a “DABA” (Deserves A Bigger Audience) blogger. As I thought about it, my mind rolled over to all the kids I taught and the ways they reacted to unexpected feedback. They were changed people. And so I muse:

Doesn’t everybody deserve a bigger audience?

I started rewinding the reactions I saw when students absorbed just one little bit of extra recognition– even just from a quiet teacher comment. But when they approached projects with a broader audience, they REALLY became porous sponges to the flowing reactions, in turn creating better products than I ever imagined. There were kids who sweated for weeks, perfecting scripts for student-made TV shows worthy of a “Televiddy Award,” our middle school’s equivalent to the Emmys. There were kids who spent hours creating bald eagle, turkey, and vulture costumes and the accompanying “National Bird Pageant” script for a Bicentennial Minute that actually DID win a local Emmy once televised. Simply seeing it aired on TV was what they cared about. There were little second graders who, when they found out their inventions would be judged by an actual patent attorney and several high school “judges,” suddenly cared about whether their gadget truly worked (not required, but it sure mattered to them).

Is it any wonder that their achievement soared? Is it surprising that I find myself carefully revising my words in this post-DABA post?

We read the research about authentic learning, but how often do we remember that every kid is a DABA in some way. And most of us still perk up and suck in feedback from respected sources as adults. We just forget to give it as often as we should.

Whom will you dub a DABA today?

Where I am today, the wind is howling in a classic nor’easter, with snow swirling into near white-outs. As always happens to me when the natural world is doing something noteworthy, I find myself drawing analogies connected to what I witness in nature. Today’s musing: Is education the response to intellectual “whiteout,” a way to prevent students from  blowing and drifting?

A recent New York Times article underscored the pragmatic trends in education during tough economic times. Specifically they cite the priority of technological, scientific, and employment needs that have pushed aside the liberal arts into pockets within “elitist” colleges. The Times further points out that the proponents of the humanities have not successfully marketed their field as essential to the future of the U.S. and the world.

Marketing the humanities?  Hmmm.

To prevent minds for blowing and drifting, do we steer students to science and technology where their efforts can be measured and their products fill practical needs in society? If we do so to the exclusion of the study of history, literature, writing, the arts, and even philosophy, will the winds abate and the snows settle into sparkling mounds of freshness?

You can tell by my questioning where I stand. I am an unabashed proponent of the liberal arts.  Without the ability to bounce new ideas off each other, to question, muse, and say the unexpected using an unexpected turn of phrase, we cannot stop the blowing and drifting of young minds and press ahead to a sparkling world. Indeed, we NEED some blowing and drifting of thought or we risk hardened, stale, brown-grey piles of crusty snow formed by plowing those once-sparkly flakes too quickly into the places where they are “supposed” to go.  I have no problem with the value of pragmatism. I believe it is in the process of questioning and making connections and oxymorons out of the scientific and measurable that we turn blowing and drifting into the striking patterns we see on the hillsides of thought. This is blowing and drifting allowed to follow and create new patterns. And I would maintain that without the liberal arts, without people seeing analogies and wondering aloud, the scientists would be stuck in crusty snow mounds that age and melt from the underside into cinder-filled storm sewers long after the rest of the winter has thawed.

I hope we can allow education to appreciate some blowing and drifting, veering entirely neither to white-out nor plow-hedges. We need everyone’s ideas — stirred by a little blowing and drifting.

Twenty or thirty years from now, electronic libraries will be full of cyber-volumes about the opening decade of the 21st century and the confluence of events that turned the world sideways like an iPhone display: the flood of web 2.0, September 11, wars, and unprecedented economic distress. We certainly have no satellite view today. We cannot even feel the tilt well enough to know which end is up. We have all this information, and we can find out nothing.

I just finished editing another set of small tidbits to throw into the Web of information and ideas about the economy: some pages for parents on how to help children and teens cope during tough economic times and some for teachers on how to help all of us learn more about these complex systems. But even collecting and synthesizing good information from reliable sources is a slippery reality. When it comes down to it, nothing we write is any better than the reliable sources we trust — trust just because someone else we trust already trusted them. Even a savvy web user can only use the tests of reputation, references, credentials, and (gulp) Google ranking to decide who to believe. If my network says it’s reliable, I guess I can trust it.

As educators we know that we must help our students learn to compare information, assess it, compile it,  and convey it, but there are days like today when I wonder if we are simply helping them build a false sense of reality. I watch the news and I wonder which “authority” or “expert”  will fall tomorrow, which economic scheme will prove false, which report on the stateus of Afghanistan will be mistaken. I especially wonder what the state of the economy really is. No one knows. And this time Google does not help. There does not seem to be an algorithm for ranking such a total abstraction.

I am afraid I am left simply wondering what they will say in twenty or thirty years about all of us who are driven by the shepherds of the news media and the Internet. Reality is slippery, and we are supposed to help our students navigate it when we do not understand it ourselves. But someone trusts us because someone else they trust trusted us.

Scary.

In the 1940s, a young woman with a college education was often the first in her family. If she became a teacher, she worked until marriage and was then asked to leave. In some very enlightened schools, she might have finished the school year with a ring on her finger or even worked until she became pregnant. Then it ended. After she had children, she did not return to work for many, many years, if ever.

But a few women returned to the classroom sooner. This was the adventurous generation of bright, energetic women who had much to share. These were women who shared brilliance and flexed remarkable power in the lives of both their own children and the futures of thousands of “kids” before any breath of women’s rights or feminism was heard. These were working women before the term “daycare” was even coined.

Last week I attended a memorial service for one such woman and listened to her grandchildren and children tell of the school “kids” who came to the house, even on Christmas Day, to show their affection and respect, singing Christmas carols. Many of these respectful visitors were in the congregation at the memorial service, now grandparents themselves.

Now our nation has a new leader who has declared a call to service, and I stop to think about the adventurous generation of women who heard that call not long after their soon-to-be-husbands returned from WWII. Their service went unnoticed by most, except the young beneficiaries of that gentle power and willing, brilliant spirit. These women shared not only within their own families but with year after year of their “kids” at school. They were considered strange to be working full time — probably even regarded as “bad” mothers for doing so.  But the service they paid to the next generation and the next should not be forgotten.

It is so much easier to become a teacher now. Yes, the “kids,” the testing, and the political pressures are tougher. But no one kicks them out for marriage, pays them less for being female, or criticizes them for being working moms. In fact, becoming a teacher is considered “easy” (HA!), at least compared to becoming a rocket scientist or investment banker.

So I salute the adventurous generation of teacher/moms who spawned the next generation of women who broke the glass ceilings and said things out loud. So few of them are left, but those who are around are probably still befriending teenagers at church and organizing something.

As I write this, I am listening to wind chimes — the long, tubular, metal kind that resonate with deep tones. The late December wind gusts occasionally escalate the usual mellow tones into a dissonant frenzy. I have become accustomed to hearing them, an indicator of the invisible, weather-changing winds coming across the lake. These same winds provide a climate early-warning system on the lake side of the house quite opposite the protected, oblivious side. The wind chimes help us avoid the complete shock of stepping out unprepared into the changing micro-climate. Fortunately, we can hear the chimes’ reminders inside the house and select our outerwear accordingly.

Late December also brings the annual rite of reflecting back on a year gone by. The winds of 2008 resonate with edgy, dissonant tones of wind chimes as a front comes through. Every newscast this week has commented on the changes: political, economic, military, societal, world…. the media wind chimes are truly in a frenzied state. But the optimist in me cannot help but hear the underlying mellow tones, tones that find occasional harmonious combinations or a counterpoint of difference that somehow fits together.

My hope is that the winds of upheaval which produce so much dissonance will also escort in a refreshing front of rethinking, a permission to look anew at everything, including the way we operate the processes we call Teaching and Learning. As someone who has been fortunate enough to have had almost entirely positive experiences with Teaching and Learning in my life, I want so much for others to feel the same winds. Even more, I wish them wind chimes of their own: an awareness that the winds ARE ushering in change. And change is not bad; you just need to put on the appropriate outerwear.

Happy New Year.

OK, I am going to go completely off-topic…but I think I can pull it back in at the end.

Last night I watched A Charlie Brown Christmas for at least the 70th time (once a December since 1965, plus several repeats, VHS tapes,  and a DVD) . I can recite the entire dialog and knew the song, “Christmas Time is Here,” before the rest of the world ever heard it. I was one of those kids who was singing in the intro and during the tree sequence at the end of the show. I even got to shout “Merry Christmas Charlie Brown!” in a San Francisco sound studio late one night, having no idea that the shouts of the six of us,  fellow church junior choir members,  would be used at the moment that makes millions of people smile and an animated Charlie Brown do a double-take at least once each Christmas season on TV.

It is a long story, some of which is documented in the book Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez wrote at the35th anniversary of the making of the show, a few months after Charles Schulz passed away. They messed up recounting the details of where our junior choir came from, but they did include portions of the letter I sent to Mr. Schulz… no matter. I just said all that to “prove” that I am not making this up.

What I noticed last night [here she goes—connecting back to the usual themes of this blog] was the community the Peanuts gang has. The absence of adults (except the wah-wah-wah voice of a school teacher in LATER specials) is a given in Peanuts. These kids do everything together: play baseball, fly kites (or not), learn about life, and even run their own Christmas play. We accept that. In the fantasy world of Charlie Brown and Lucy, kids have wisdom beyond their years and work together to respond to the needs of their own. Last night it was Charlie Brown’s need to see what Christmas is all about. Linus delivers his explanation from Luke’s gospel (no laugh track or audience sound afterward — just peaceful reverberation of silence). The gang follows Charlie Brown and decorates his tree. It is a world where kids fall down and pick each other up as they learn together and individually.

No, that is NOT the point of A Charlie Brown Christmas, but it does make me wonder whether we can duplicate even a portion of what these kids have in our own classroom community by pulling the adults  several steps back and allowing the kids to support each other. The likelihood that this would turn to chaos among real kids is high, yet the “what if” is important. The Peanuts gang has complete ownership. They still dance when they are supposed to be rehearsing their nativity play and argue about eating snowflakes. But when the snowballs hit the fan, they make sure that everyone gets what he/she needs. It might be fun to challenge a class to create the same community. Heaven knows, they have all seen the show! If I were still in my elementary gifted classroom, I might try it one year. All I’d need is a recording of “nah-nah-nah” to play when things got out of hand.

 Today I am listening to Pandora as I work. They have several holiday “stations” (many available over iTunes and on mobile devices, as well).  I love Pandora because I can teach it what I like.  I can also change moods: the Peaceful Holiday station as  I stress about an upcoming board meeting, Rock Holiday to keep me awake on a Friday afternoon, etc.

As I enjoy the privilege of music in my workday life (unlike during 27 years of music-less classrooms), I can’t help wondering why we can’t let the music in for kids, too. Classrooms have no music, except when we ship kids down the hall for their weekly fix. Of course, different music has different effects on each student, so figuring out which music, if any, actually helps a student focus, think, and create will be a challenge. Individualizing music is no different from individualizing any other learning.

I feel another analogy coming on.

Pandora has this remarkable way of taking self-reported “like it” and “hate it” signals and integrating them with a detailed analysis of musical  features: lyrics, rhythms, styles, instrumentation, even voice quality. The more the listener reports “like it” or “hate it,” the better Pandora is at sending out just the “right stuff.” So why don’t we involve kids in reporting “works for me” and “doesn’t work for me” as soon as they are developmentally ready to reflect on which approach helps them learn, including music?

With younger ones, we could simply expose them to different approaches (and music) so they know what they are. These might include seeing the images of new concepts, listening to podcasts about them, MAKING podcasts about them, reading quietly, reading aloud, building something, etc. We just need to be sure we offer the “stations” of music (learning) with as much variety as Pandora’s music offerings. The learning offerings should include actual music as they learn, too. The science teacher in upper elementary or middle school could even assign them to conduct experiments on the impact of different “stations” on their test performance or other evidence of mastery.

By the time kids are in late middle school and entering HS, they should have a pretty good idea of what helps them learn. Asking them to be involved in defining it— and then in facilitating it– will make them better lifelong learners than any approach we superimpose on them.

So back to the music. With Pandora and other music so readily available in streaming forms and on mobile devices, etc., why aren’t we letting the music in?  Yes, there are times when headphones will prevent kids from hearing necessary information. But the impact of individualized “Thinking Pandora” stations delivered via kids’ iPhones as they work independently could let far more than just the music in.

- written with accompaniment from Pandora’s Peaceful Holiday and Folk Holiday stations

This is an open letter blog entry to a valued colleague because she is someone who aways responds,”Why not?” when I hatch some hare-brained scheme…and she adds her own hare-brain!

Donna,

Six years ago we were in the midst of doing something no one else had done (as far as we knew and still know now). We were about to take six very bright kids to Alaska in winter and have them teach their peers via the web using what they had taught themselves through the web and real-life contacts in Alaska. Sounds old hat now. Except  that in 2002-03, there were no wikis. There were no photo and video sharing sites. We did it all by figuring out solutions using available tools and begging for freebies. If we’d had wikis and Youtube…..my goodness!

Roll the clock six years. Read what the MacArthur Foundation says this week about time spent online and how kids learn today – really about how all of us should consider re-visioning what education is, based on how kids are learning. My electronic “quote wall” pulled from the summary:

change the dynamics of youth-adult negotiations over literacy, learning, and authoritative knowledge?

“interest-driven” networks

Self-Directed, Peer-Based Learning

“geek out”

specialized knowledge groups of both teens and adults

gaining reputation among expert peers

erases the traditional markers of status and authority

outcome emerges through exploration, in contrast to classroom learning that is oriented toward set, predefined goals.

skills that youth value are highly variable depending on what kinds of social groups they associate with. This diversity in forms of literacy means that it is problematic to develop a standardized set of benchmarks to measure levels of new media and technical literacy.

New role for education? ….What would it mean to really exploit the potential of the learning opportunities available through online resources and networks?

So, Donna, if kids really learn by poking around online themselves — and we know they do– and have entirely separate networks of experts (and ways to define “expert”) on topics we, as the “adults,” do not even know about…why not invite a dozen or so of them to redesign their education and see how well they could meet two masters: the legal one that says they have to meet certain “standards” and the personal master within themselves. I would hypothesize that given the right environment, the right tools, some no-B.S. adult  mentors, and the motivation that they might actually be able to affect change, you  and I could guide a group of HS kids to redesign learning into something meaningful to them. Here is the beginning of a framework of sorts:

To start, give the kids the standards, explaining that this is the part over which we have no control-yet. Tell them to find the “expert network” to learn about it themselves (and prove it). 

The kids proceed to: (with the side-by-side participation of “teachers,” as needed and specified by law)

• Find the source/community of experts 
• Verify the knowledge level of the source Who else links to him/her? How can you tell he/she is good? Do you find this source referenced over and over again? Can you find out anything about him/her?  Would you trust him to fix/use your computer? etc.
• Engage and question
• Participate and interact with their own questions and exploration
• Show learning—turn in the URL from the online community where their learning “shows”—along with a list of the questions they still want to know. 
• Show where this fits into the “standards”- the kids do the alignment
• Maybe keep a personal RSS Reader organized by academic topics? 

They end up as content experts in their own right, with a vast network of places to return and learn more…including through their peers who are also engaged at various stages in the same process. Most importantly, the kids are involved in actually defining and evaluating this very cyclical process: Does it work? What should we change? What is B.S.? What is cool?

So, Donna, looking back on 2002-03, isn’t this what the better participants in CV/AK did? As they found connections to prescribed curriculum, they went off into their own expert networks to learn what “fit” for them—and what they thought would fit for their peers.

We won’t talk about the “management issues” of watching over 150 kids instead of 12…that’s another day on Think Like A Teacher. That’s an outdated concept, too…

Not bad for something hatched on a Friday. After all, CV/AK came out of a breakfast at (now defunct) George’s.

Why not?

Today a man I respect and enjoy is retiring from his role as a teacher and a teacher-of-teachers. He isn’t really retiring; he’s just going from full time work to part time work and selecting the projects he WANTS to work on. Jim Gates describes himself as a very “lucky man.”  This news made me stop to think about the last two and half years since I left teaching (and teaching teachers) in a school district and moved to my current job at TeachersFirst. There are so many things that I did not expect to find in moving out of “school world” and into “school fringe/non-profitland.” Below are my top ten unexpected differences between my life as a teacher and my new professional life. Since Jim has been working in an intermediate unit (something like a BOCES or school service agency), and not as close to actual classrooms, he may not be as struck by these…especially since he will not be a full time employee elsewhere. But I suspect he will find some of them to be true, as well.

The Top Ten Realizations for a Teacher looking back:

10. No one likes hearing a teacher’s stories of an amazing unit or an incredible kid. When they say, “you had to be there,” they mean it.  You’ll have to talk to another (or former) teacher to find a sympathetic ear and share that laugh.

9. It is nice to have the excuse of standing up all day so you can wear comfortable shoes and ignore fashion. Dressy shoes hurt. (Telecommuting from a home office helps!)

8. If you liked teaching, you will always like talking to teachers. If you don’t see them, you will answer their webmaster emails just to hear their delight at having someone listen.

7. People start more slowly in offices. They are not on hall-duty with 900 middle schoolers shoving past them three minutes after they hang up their coat (at 7:15 a.m.).

6. Having routines and schedules for every day can be a very difficult pattern to break. After schedules and patterns for 27 years, deciding what to do first, second, third, can be both delightful and exhausting.

5. Corollary to #6: Creating routines, patterns, and “plans” for the day generates rigidity that others do not understand or appreciate. Give it up.

4. The work year in the “real world” has no start and end. All the things I did before ended in June (even if they were not “done”), and new things started in August. It is much harder to work without an automatic refresh-and-renew cycle.

3. (Corollary to #4) January does not automatically begin discussion of “next year,” allowing you to skip changing anything between February and May.

2. People (i.e. outside school)  in the world do work ten hour + days. Sorry guys, but teachers are not the only workaholics.

1. Nothing replaces experiencing kids’ reactions. Nothing.

A new school year provokes two conflicting impulses: to survive on the tried-and-true or to seize the chance to change. Teachers everywhere feel the push-me-pull-you of these two forces every fall (at least I know I did for 27 years).  This week I enjoyed reading about the changes one of our TeachersFirst review team members made. It got me thinking about the energy and courage required to change, especially in isolation. I am not sure anyone can go it alone.

A  base-runner deciding whether to go for another looks to a coach before changing his/her path (Little League world series in my mind…).  A widow or widower after the death of a life-long spouse must decide what to do the same way and what to change– and friends support them in the process. Middle schoolers decide where they sit for lunch on the first day of school: last year’s friends or new ones? They are steered by peers.

Where does a teacher get the support to change? For some risk-taker teachers, it happens every year, but they are most likely the minority. Risk-taking personalities don’t usually choose teaching as a career. For many, “change” is thrust upon them by the latest initiative from the top, leading to performance of the same script in a new costume, a teacher exercise in “let’s pretend.”

Teachers are usually left to find their own support if they elect to try changes. They use peers, online communities, resources from web sites, and their own inner strength to guide the decisions and test new ideas. The courage they show is heroic. No wonder so many turn away and choose to remain in safe sameness. One person has only a finite amount of energy, and this heroic effort is exhausting.

Pro-Keds (ROYAL COURT BOMP POP)Originally uploaded by linguistone

If I could wish teachers one thing as this new school year begins, it would be the smell of new sneakers and the jungle gym we had when we were seven: the feeling that we could jump higher and climb anything this first day of school. Being on the playground with so many others  AND my new sneakers made me feel safe enough to risk things I had never tried before.