Think Like a Teacher

This is the final episode in a long fable, and perhaps the start of another. Unravel the previous chapters here.

The town of Forwardthink has completely changed. At the stroke of midnight  (about 1 pm Pacific Time) on May 12, the doors of the Town Hall opened, and an arm tacked one final message on the door. From inside, the sounds of music and dancing and jingling keys of gold echoed across the near-empty square. Outside, the few remaining Innovators rushed to read the message.

It was a vaguely familiar sheet of paper with a scrap pasted at the end– pasted onto the same message that had been posted for others in mid-March. The scrap bore a few new words explaining that the winners were already inside the Town Hall, apparently ushered in by a secret passageway several days before.  As the handful of remaining, bedraggled and tired Innovators huddled to read and re-read, a small voice from among them sighed,

“The Elders did not even take the time to cross out the old version of the “go away” message and start a fresh piece of paper to tell us they did not want us. They have simply pasted a scrap of a sentence at the end of an old message. I guess we were not worthy enough to see the Elders or hear their actual words.”

“But look! We can see the Winners through the windows!” cried another as he jumped up and down to see over the high sill and beyond the newly opened blinds.

They took turns for a minute or two, boosting one another by the foot so each could see the party of Winning Innovators. But their energy for jumping drained quickly. The MySciLife Innovators drew away from the window and stepped to the sidewalk together.

“I was SURE you would be among the winners,” came a voice from a passerby. Others who passed hummed in agreement.

Epilogue

Although the Elders of Forwardthink have not invited the MySciLife Innovators  to join the Winners inside the Town Hall, these Innovators did not simply pack their knapsacks. As the small gathering around the Town Hall dispersed, careful ears caught the MySciLifers words, “I heard there may be a different kind of Elders in other villages who may be willing to help. Let’s look at our maps, then set out for the unknown territories. If we stick together, we will find our own key of gold somewhere.”

Moral:

In a tug of war between the wisdom of the crowd and competition, who wins?

[In the spirit of crowdly wisdom, insert your moral here]

I can only imagine what a teacher in Colorado must have felt as she watched this senior’s “last lecture” in her classroom.  A few times a year– maybe a few dozen in a career– a student takes your breath away with such wisdom and depth that you want to open the windows and yell to the world. Watch a high school the next time you drive past and look for teacher heads popping out the windows to say, “THIS is it. THIS is the power of minds that I learn from. THIS is richness of thought. EVERYONE should hear this kid!”  It doesn’t happen often enough. Luckily for one teacher in Colorado, a blog post of a simple video opens the school windows for all of us fortunate to listen. She says nothing because she does not need to. Kyle says it.

Kyle teaches us about thought and connection and irony and waste in our classrooms. Mostly, he teaches us the poetry of learning. I do not mean simply that he has composed poetry. I mean that he helps us to feel the nuance and richness and layering of learning as a poem itself. The few who have commented on his video have requested a transcript. I want to read and re-read it, still hearing his voice and watching his hands poke through his pouch-pocket as he speaks. I also want to share what he says with everyone from President Obama to every disgruntled eighth grader who grimaces and scuffs his way through school. I want to let Kyle spread the poetry of learning as I could not possibly say it. And I want people to listen to him. Simply sending the link or clicking to “share” does not open my windows wide enough to overcome the noise of passing traffic. But they should stop and notice. This kid gets it and tells us what he gets…more than we get ourselves. He makes us want to get more —  from ourselves and from our schools.

So I hope that the small audience for this post will go beyond click-sharing Kyle’s last lecture. Open your windows and tell the world. This is the poetry of learning.

Teachers have a skewed view of motherhood. Teacher-moms know when their kids have homework, read the comments on the report cards (even memorize what the comment letters stand for), and remove red pens from their own kids’ school supply pack  so the kids won’t disguise the markings on their papers. With their first kid,  a teacher-mom even looks over EVERY sheet of paper that erupts from her child’s backpack. A teacher-mom sets aside time unloading backpacks on the evening of the first day of school to fill out all the forms, cards, and permissions to go back to school the NEXT day. Mind you, that was her first day with students, too, but she finds the time — perhaps wine in hand.

A teacher-mom dies of embarrassment and avoids the faculty room when her son is the one who at 16 organizes the speed races  in front of the high school or the drafts a team of twenty to cleverly decorate the HS front lawn with plastic forks, spelling out an inappropriate message.

As professionals, we know how important parent involvement is for our students, but we need to know that what we do is skewed from what most moms do. We need to stop and ask: What is it that we bring to our children’s lives (both good and bad) that the other moms do not? This is not to pat ourselves on the back, but to help us realize where our students are not coming from. It is not to make a list of “must-dos” for our student’s moms. It is simply to build an awareness of how their lives may differ from what we see at home each night.

Teacher-moms:

• Live and breathe school. We have talked about it every day of our child’s life. School is an exaggerated slice of the life-pie for our own kids.
• Overtly value education. ‘Nuf said.
• Talk about school taxes, budget priorities, and the importance of the kids. By the time a child is two, he/she has overheard it repeatedly from the grocery cart seat or the swimming pool deck.
• Use words for everything.
• See life in ten month blocks.
• Think New Year’s Day is the same as Labor Day.
• Plan ahead — for this week, next summer, next child, college…
• Change the channel when the show makes a teacher look stupid.

My list could continue, but I know there are many bright, busy teacher-moms who may have something to add. So I salute all of us this Mother’s Day weekend and ask you to add your thoughts. Maybe even ask your kids. It could make for an interesting conversation over burnt pancakes or a lovely dinner.

Happy Teacher-Mom’s Day to us.

I read a lot. Most of it appears on my computer screen: web pages, pdfs, reports, and email. And, of course,  the occasional Facebook status updates. Everything in digital form, for the most part. When a new printed catalog comes in the mail, I go to my computer to “really see” the wares. I am a digital junky. So today’s pleasant surprise was reading a book while upgrading my computer to Snow Leopard. Such a beautiful irony for a sunny gorgeous day: I get to stop answering email and sit in a  chair with a book while my trusty MacBook Pro says ” 45 minutes remaining” then “37 minutes remaining” then “Install four updates” then “restart,” etc.

I stalled on doing the upgrade because I knew it would take me out of communication for at least 3 hours while my computer gnawed through a lengthy to-do list. Embarrassingly, it took me about 6 months to “get around to it.” While the laptop churned, I read half of a new book on Security vs Access in schools, all about the challenges of balancing real “threats” of the Internet with open opportunities for student learning. Thus, another layer of irony: while my digital life was in limbo, I was reading about protecting and promoting the digital lives of kids – via the oldest known fixed form of  mass communication: the printed page. Do you ever stop and think about such ironies?

Watching a television commercial about streaming Netflix?
Reading a sugary cereal box about healthy eating?
Running inside to catch the weather forecast on TV– on a  beautiful, sunny day?
Telling your computer what you are doing instead of just DOING it?

Enough for today. It has stopped snowing leopards, and I am going outside to play

Ning  shook the world of web 2.0 junkies late last week by letting everyone know that they are going to change their terms of service and no longer offer “free” social networking spaces. Many, many teachers will ask, “who cares?”  Those who have been teaching and learNing using these spaces have filled the twittersphere and a vocal Elluminate get-together to vent, discuss alternatives, and stir a web-based uprising for web 2.0 consumer rights. The conversations in Elluminate the other night included several digressions into web 2.0 business models  as seen through educators’ (idealistic?) eyes. Adam Frey of wikispaces articulately shared their philosophy for K-12 schools and was careful to underscore the fact that every tool has its own unique model. We educators would like to think that the nobility of our cause is enough to justify “free”– forever.  After all, we gave up the big bucks to serve kids, so why can’t these web 2.0 companies? Free is the noblest route. But in today’s web 2.0 world, will it last?

As a person who runs a FREE (ad- free) web site, I am often questioned about where the money comes from.  Teachers — and even my curious friends — are secretly skeptical that we at TeachersFirst must be:

a. planning to “bait and switch” to a fee-based service as so many others have done
b. quietly advocating for a frighteningly evil cause
c. vulnerable as minnows about to be eaten by the Big Fish of the web
d. secretly funded by independently wealthy philanthropist individuals (ha!)

Actually, you should have blackened the space for e. none of the above. Unlike today’s amazing web 2.0 tools, we are a simpler site.  You can’t remix, mash up, or random-generate anything except ideas and resources for learning. What you can do is FIND anything. Good stuff. Written or reviewed by Thinking Teachers. Free. No strings. No “while in beta.” No ads creeping in next to what you really want to see. No bikini-clad models selling you anything. So skeptical (thinking!) teachers ask me directly,  “What is YOUR business model?”

The answer is simple: Robin Hood.

Our non-profit parent company is fortunate enough to have something that cellphone companies want to buy–or lease: frequencies. Those same companies that make money from your teenage students’ text messages and from charging people for precious minutes are also giving us their money. Rob from the rich (cell companies),  give to the poor (teachers). What truer justice could there be?

I wonder, though, why this “business model” could not be translated into other web venues. Wikispaces has adapted the semi-Robin Hood scenario….Take (at a reasonable fee) from those who CAN pay, and give to over 300,000 “poor”  classroom teachers. Strike a blow for Robin.

Today’s web 2.0 world has far more tools than can ever possibly survive. There are so many slideshow makers and PowerPoint wannabes that our review team simply drew an arbitrary line and stopped reviewing them. Perhaps we should examine the Robin Hood legend long enough to point out that Robin Hood is himself a physically fit, thriving benefactor/thief. Those not strong enough for a few sword fights will not survive, even if they are able to snag a few bags of gold. But I sure hope the good ones will wield their web 2.0 swords a bit on their way to hand over the coins of learning to the kids  and teachers who are ready and waiting.

There is a stir  in Forwardthink.  MySciLife, our finalist entry in the Digital Media and Learning Competition, is complete, including this video.  One of these days I’ll upgrade our version of WordPress so we can simply embed it here. But for now…go take a look.

The town of Forwardthink is abuzz during these final days before the deadline for videos and proposed budgets.  Who will “win”? Who knows!?  But the process of imagining, thinking through, and visually explaining a whole new way of learning using digital media has Innovators twisting every digital knob, mashing together different types of files,  converting, combining, and clickety-clacking mice or smooth, glassy touchpads in their excitement. And we are the”old people” who are trying to give the real students a chance to learn this way. What a wonderful, nesting Matryoshka doll/box of learning: we learn how to show our ideas so real students can say it even better outside our carefully crafted box. Their box of learning is actually the larger one that envelopes our vision and grows yet another and another layer.  We “innovators” have carved a small but beautiful vision, the smallest inner seedling of a doll/box. The best thing that can happen is for students to encase it in their own, more artful ideas.

Back in Forwardthink, we Innovators are busy marveling at how pretty our starter Matryoshka doll/boxes are. We hover about the Town Hall doors. The Elders have not even told us when to expcet The Announcement. The Wise Crowds are still busy sharing their insights. And we wait to learn:

In a tug of war between the wisdom of the crowd and competition, who wins?

 I think it’s the  Matryoshka dolls of learning who ultimately win. We are just part of the process.

In a tug of war between the wisdom of the crowd and competition, who wins?

Our narrator has been scurrying about in the land of Forwardthink . The story continues! You may want to refresh your memory of the first two chapters here and here.

On the day scheduled for the Big Announcement, it came to pass that the clocks in Forwardthink froze. For nearly four days, the Innovators hovering about outside the town hall grumbled and wondered as time stood still. Although an occasional Tweetboat arrived on the nearby river carrying possible news, the Innovators knew not whom they should trust. The few who remained close by the Town Hall doors multitasked silently as they waited to hear who would have the final opportunity to compete for the Keys of Gold.

Suddenly, and without notice, there was once a new,announcement tacked to the doors, and E-owl messengers were sent far and wide to all Innovators, as well.  The Finalists’ names appeared on a list, along withthe declaration that the Wise Crowd would be invited in for commenting again “soon.”  There was a small map instructing the Finalists to meet at the Peak in 27 days where they must present the mandatory Magic Picture and a lined purse prepared for Keys of Gold.

Among the Innovators still huddled at the portal to the Town Hall, cheers rang out while some slinked quietly away, trudging off on another unmarked trail toward innovation, seeking a different wise crowd.  Those whose names were on The List soon muffled their cheers as they saw the map to the peak and realized both the distance and the treacherous path ahead. They knew that the task of creating a Magic Picture and sewing the perfect lined purse would take many days before their first footfall along the path to the Peak. It was also rumored that unknown trolls and demons might line the trail. Something called the Wicked WebGlitch of the West had been eating Innovator’s ideas and making them disappear. Surely the journey would be fraught with stress and peril.

One very special team of Innovators is elated to be among The Finalists and has been working through many long nights creating their Magic Picture. They hope have begun sewing their lined purse, as well. As they stir every Innovator Potion they have to help in the tasks, they continue to marvel at the thoughts of the crowd who visit their MySciLife web display and share wisdom with  Innovators and Elders alike. They hope your wisdom will give them  strength to scale  up to the Digital Media and Learning Competition peak, earning the Golden Keys.  Soon they will hand the Elders their Magic Picture and lined purse. Then all will wait once again for many days as we hope to learn:

In a tug of war between the wisdom of the crowd and competition, who wins?

Won’t you share your wisdom with this special team of Innovators before April 19?

Technology takes us too seriously.

April Fools Day takes us beyond comic relief to some interesting observations on technology and life. It all  started when I went to write an upcoming weekly Update for TeachersFirst and was not sure how to spell whoopee cushion. So… I Googled it. First, Google’s suggested offerings gave me a good laugh:

What is a whoopy cat, anyway? Alas, despite the lure of whoopie pie recipes, I stuck with my initial whoopy hypothesis. Lo and behold, Google again corrected me:

Showing results for whoopee cushion. Search instead for whoopy cushion

But the richness of whoopy cushions could not be greater! Not only can I only find  the ubiquitous wikipedia explanation; I also find Google Ad results galore. Did you know:

That whoopee cushions (the correct spelling) are apparently oriental?

That you can apparently get any size online?

That they have been around for over 50 years?

That there is something called PottyPutty (ewwww…).

That there is a best value whoopee cushion?

That Amazon places them under sports?

Wow, the things you learn about whoopee cushions from Google.

I look further:

There are images of whoopee cushions, videos of whoopee cushions, and — the ultimate in technology — a whoopee cushion widget!

As my husband chimes in:

No matter how sophisticated we get with technology, someone will teach it to make fart noises.

So, as April Fools’ Day approaches,  fear not. Google can help you find humor in the serious and take even the most frivolous gag seriously. There must be a lesson in 21st century literacy buried in here somewhere, but I think I just heard a fart noise from the back of a classroom.

Ok, my title is a bit of a stretch and certainly a distortion of logic. But Scientific American published a 60 second science podcast today about how puberty makes kids stupid. A study of brains in pubescent mice shows that puberty triggers a sort of interference by something called a GABA receptor that gets into the brain at puberty (in mice), preventing neurons from forming connections as they did when the mouse was not experiencing hormone rage. A slightly more elaborate explanation of the mouse study in the Science Magazine podcast (March 19) explains further that stress may actually improve learning during these dumbed-down days by overriding the GABA interference. So I muse:

If puberty inhibits brain function enough to prevent learning, do zits possibly prevent learning?

If we can interfere with the pubescent brainstall simply by adding a little stress, should we be stressing our teenagers more?

If puberty causes zits, will learning — which implies conquering puberty — cure them?

But isn’t stress supposed to CAUSE zits?

Or does stress cause puberty?

You have 60 seconds to generate the logic diagram for these arguments, separate fact from fiction, and report it with APA documentation…or simply get a zit. How’s that for stress-induced learning?

It must be Friday.

I am speechless. Those who know me are probably stunned that anything could silence this mouth. But the US DOE has done it to me and to millions of students, teachers, and minds with one stroke. They have eliminated funding for the National Writers Project (NWP) as part of the proposed Education budget. Carolyn Foote and Bud Hunt give the details, including Bud’s efforts to ascertain the rationale behind such a crazy decision. The story continues on their blogs, and I hope you will follow it as you scream via whatever medium works for you.

I am stunned at the notion that the NWP  might not have demonstrable impact on student achievement or might have to compete to prove its impact. The NWP’s impact is not only STUDENT achievement. It is discovery of adult voices for life. The NWP is the mental musical accompaniment that helps writers of all ages and stages find their voices, voices they will use to sing, speak, convince, debate, and contribute forever. Teachers who participate in the NWP go from classroom voices to real world voices. The NWP is not a school-specific approach to writing. The NWP makes writers.

The summer I spent in a NWP affiliate program drew me closer to articulating creative process and metacognition than anything I had ever experienced. I lived, survived, and thrived as I watched a kindergarten teacher next to me go from fear of writing to celebrating her voice among her peers and even in a wider world. The NWP makes writers who make writers who make writers. If there were ever a viral learning experience, the NWP is it.

Policy makers and education critics tout the strength of alternative teacher certification programs in bringing experienced practitioners from any given field into the classroom. The NWP makes those in the classroom into practitioners of writing, lifelong writers who continue to hone their craft as they live among other (younger) writers. The NWP allows teachers to learn among their students in a community of writers and to articulate the experience with more authority than a nuclear scientist who walks into a physics class. The NWP provides both the experience and the vocabulary to help each teacher start a writing garden. The NWP experience is viral. The NWP makes writers who make writers who make writers.

You are a blog reader. You are benefiting from the NWP.  Every student of every NWP teacher-participant benefits. And they go on to jobs where they can explain, argue, email, tweet — and perhaps stop to personally question word choice or paragraph substance as they live, survive, and thrive as writers in a world often bereft of deliberate word choice or thought about how we speak and write. Isn’t that the community of literate adults we want? The NWP makes writers who make writers who make writers.

Now it is your turn to write to someone about the NWP. If you never knew much about the NWP or are not sure if it has had an impact on you, ask. Ask your former English teacher, kindergarten teacher, or any adult whose writing you admire: did you ever have anything to do with anyone who had participated in the NWP? Did your teachers?  If we could trace the connections between writers we respect and contact with NWP, how many degrees of separation would there be? Maybe we should be asking that out loud. If I could reach out to the thousands of students I taught over the years, I would remind them: I was a fellow of a NWP affiliate. And they would conclude: The NWP makes writers who make writers who make writers. Pass it on.