"To what base uses we may return..." OR Shut up and read

As of today, Philly's got one month left of school. It's starting to show. I'm fine with that.
In retrospect, I probably wouldn't have saved Hamlet and Othello as the last texts for my ninth and tenth graders respectively. Still, I did, so we're here and there's nothing to be done about it now.
I co-teach my freshman sections with an equally energetic teacher whom the kids dubbed Ms. WaWa before I arrived.
We've made it to Act V Scene i and this is where the good stuff starts, right? I mean, daggers are drawn, poison is discussed and NO ONE is reading.
When reviewing the plot as it relates to the main themes in one section of today's class, I did one of those teacher pauses and noticed that thing that happens sometimes where a teacher asks a question, gives the appropriate amount of think time and then in the absence of eager hands, answers the question with an energy level that would make the Micro Machines Man winded.
Direct questions to the more aloof members of the class resulted in the bewildered stare I remember giving to my mom where I hoped I could wait out her interest in an answer rather than offer something self-incriminating.
My sails a bit wind-deprived, I stopped WaWa and asked a question to which I already knew the answer.
They hadn't read. Well, to be fair, four of them admitted they had completed the required reading. The rest of the class was either sitting idly hoping to go unnoticed or proffering up answers that belied a less-than-complete knowledge of the text.
I got my ire on.
"If you've read, that's great, get started on tonight's reading and you'll be ahead of the game. If you haven't read, start. Tomorrow, there will be a reading quiz asking for detailed answers to what happened."
I was met with the requisite, "oh-geez-we-ticked-him-off-feign-shame" silence. A minute or so later, shame had passed, a laptop was opened. "What are you doing?" says I.
"I'm going on sparknotes to read the No Fear Shakespeare version."
"No, no you're not. We're keeping technology out of this one and we're just reading and making notes where we don't understand things, so that we can ensure a rich class discussion tomorrow."
Yeah, I used the teacher "we" when I was talking about them - that's how ticked I was.
Now, I'll admit to faking my way through many a class discussion (I like to think it's a part of why they gave me my degree), but I also knew the classes where actually reading the text was key to survival:

Understanding of plot points - necessary
Main ideas of article on a New Historicist understanding of text - unnecessary

They don't know how to honor these differences yet. Today's class pulled back the curtain on a rather befuddled All Powerful Oz. Tonight they will read. They may not like it, but they will read. Such is life in compulsory education.
Tomorrow's class will be better for it. They will feel smarter because they will actually be smarter. They will know which questions to ask and how to ask them. At least that's the goal. No computers, no ActivBoards, no wifi, just kids, books, teachers and the occasional stickie note.
Here's hoping.
More later.

So...about the world, seems like it's time to change it

My mom likes to tell the story of the first time she read me the biography of Martin Luther King Jr. I was all of 7 or 8 years old. As she tells it, there was a bit of a paradigm shift involved. I marched back and forth in my footie pajamas explaining to her that "it was wrong, why would someone kill him? Why would people hate other people because they looked different?" It was my first run in with some of the big questions that unfortunately continue to trouble the world.
Two weeks ago, we started the third quarter at SLA.
As I last posted, I seem to have challenged my kids to change the world in 9 weeks or less.
Friday, they started posting.
The basics are this:

1. Pick a problem.
2. Build a feed reader with at least three feeds on your problem and search/bookmark viable sites.
3. Throughout the quarter, write 10 informational posts using the information from your reader/bookmarked sites.
4. Throughout the quarter, write 5 reflective posts on your progress.
5. Draft an 3-5 minute "elevator pitch" for a possible change agent to show you know what you're talking about.
6. Draft an action plan around a realistic solution to the problem you've selected.
7. Meet with an identified change agent and present your pitch and action plan.

Friday, their first two posts were due. I've started reading them. Some good work from first-time bloggers. The next step is to help them build readerships. While I'm asking teachers at SLA to read and comment on posts regarding their areas of interest, I issue this call to anyone out there - read here or here and help teach our students.
I'll be linking the formal project and rubric descriptions soon.
More later.

On Editing

Our 9th Graders are working on fractured fairy tales for their benchmark. Last night's homework was to complete their rough drafts. Because these will be incorporated into children's picture books, there's a word limit of 500. It does an English teacher's heart good to have students complaining they absolutely cannot write anything under 596 words.
In an effort to stem the onset of AEP (Adolescent Editing Phobia), I'm turning back to my roots - my college roots.
There were a few things I garnered from my formal college education, truly a few. One of them was comparative adverbial forms such as, "He slowed down more slowly than she did." The other was from Professor Bob Broad - The Writer's Memo.
I remember writing my first memo in Broad's class. I remember thinking it was a complete waste of time. I remember getting my draft back with memo and comments and realizing I had just learned something about editing.
Today, my 9th graders will be turning in their rough drafts, writing their memos and trading papers. I'm hoping for goodness. I realize not every student is going to get as much out of the writers memo as I did. Still, I'm hoping it will be a start to a larger conversation over what it takes to truly get worthwhile peer review happening on a draft.
If not, I'll move on to comparative adverbial phrases.
More later.

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Image credit: http://flickr.com/photos/skylover/455669442/

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Off the Road Again

Back in the classroom after a week in Long Beach working with the Freedom Writers Foundation to engage, enlighten and empower a group of 30 educators from across the country. It was my first extended absence from SLA, and I wasn't sure how things would play out with my sub.
Moodle was helpful in automating my class, but the substitute was, shall we say, "colorful."
While that could be seen as working for me in that my students heralded my return, the loss of face time, of structure, of concrete learning in my absence was worrisome.
While I'm uncertain of the degree to which I should accept the truthfulness of their statements, my students reported the substitute teacher said that iPods were outlawed in the city of Philadelphia, that working in groups was not allowed (I left a group assignment and outlined it as such in my lesson plans) and that moodle was off limits.
I hate leaving my kids with anyone else. It comes with the vibe of teaching the "Classroom of Love." Still, I should be able to. The tools exist. In many lessons, I approach the goal of facilitating self-directed learning over simply teaching.
Why, then, does leaving the room to a substitute create the havoc it does? The substitute teacher was a former full-time educator, she has had her own classroom. As such, the execution of the lesson plan should have been simple and effective. Though across the country, I was still facilitating. And yet.
The system was broken somewhere. That's my initial response. Further consideration pushes me to think that perhaps the teacher, the actual person, is of more importance than thought. The tools, the collaboration, the self-direction - all tied up with the presence of the teacher.
Is this true? Poke holes.
More later.

Stressed? Maybe a little

Since school let out, I've been uber-busy. I know, I know, the busy-ness is supposed to slow down when the year's over, but it hasn't. I'm a different sort of busy now.
I've three presentations to prepare for this summer.
First up is next week's district conference on Differentiated Instruction. My presentation is on building community and an environment for risk-taking in the classroom. I've been whittling away at an outline over at my wiki, but hadn't realized the true work ahead until I sat down to put the actual presentation together. I'm facilitating the session once each day of the conference and a little tense.
I don't want to be that guy at the conference who gets people to say, "Oh, don't worry about that one, I went yesterday and it't not worth your time."
The main source of stress is finding a way to put everything together in a way that's accessible and succinct. I called Ms. Dunda after one long go at putting the presentation together and voiced my frustration at wanting to show how all of the pieces fit together but also feeling like I have to introduce all of the pieces.
I also want to truly facilitate and not merely present. I value the experiences of each teacher who's going to walk through that door and want those experiences to be shared and incorporated.
I've set the bar mighty high for myself. I've got a few days to prepare to reach it.
As for the other two conferences, they can wait until this one's done.
More later.

Photo from www.psychologycoach.com/stressanxiety/4515800867

1 of 12

This past weekend was an interesting one.
My little sister Rachel was in town for her spring break. Always trying to be the cool big brother, I was able to get tickets to the Opening Night Gala for the Sarasota Film Festival. As parties, nay, events go in Sarasota, this one's a biggie.
One might imagine that, for a young lady of 17, the food, the people, the music, the fancy clothes would all be the memorable parts of the evening. Not so.
In fact, they were not the memorable parts of the evening for me either.
One unassuming man in a full tuxedo made the night.
His name is Edgar Mitchell. Sadly, it was not a name I knew before Friday night.
He is one of 12 men in the history of our planet to walk on the surface of the moon. 1 of 12!
For those of you familiar with film or photos of an astronaut throwing a javelin on the surface of the moon, that was Mitchell.
Now, here's the thing, the thing that really stuck - he gets it.
Listening to Mitchell speak to some VIPs at the party, I heard him mention the need to improve education in America. The mention of such a topic by anyone will catch my ear, much to my friends' chagrin.
When the VIPs moved on, I leaned in to Mitchell and said, "Do you mind if I ask you a question that doesn't have to do with the moon?"
"Not at all," he replied.
"I heard you say you thought more needed to be done with education. Can you explain that a little?"
Well, we were off. He gets it. He really does. Not often do I meet anyone outside of education who truly understands the need to change the way we do business. Mitchell did. "What we're doing, the way we're teaching these kids, it's criminal. And you know I'm right."
He is right.
Our time together was Swiss cheesy due to Mitchell's frequent calls to be interviewed or meet VIPs, but here's the short list of where we need to be looking:

• creativity
• problem solving
• throwing away the old model
• science

I made sure to get his card and will certainly be following up on our discussion in hopes of having this actual American pioneer come and share his experiences and thoughts with our teachers and students.
Let's hope it doesn't take the same kind of perspective to which Mitchell was privy before other outsiders start to see what's important in education.

Something to Mull Over

Classroom Distinctions - New York Times

A friend and fellow teacher sent me the above link to a Times op-ed piece on the relationship between movie teachers and real world teachers. Seems they are two different animals.

Tom Moore, the writer of the piece, is a teacher in the Bronx. He writes:

Films like “Freedom Writers” portray teachers more as missionaries than professionals, eager to give up their lives and comfort for the benefit of others, without need of compensation. Ms. Gruwell sacrifices money, time and even her marriage for her job.

Her behavior is not represented as obsessive or self-destructive, but driven — necessary, even. She is forced into making these sacrifices by the aggressive neglect of the school’s administrators, who won’t even let her take books from the bookroom. The film applauds Ms. Gruwell’s dedication, but also implies that she has no other choice. In order to be a good teacher, she has to be a hero.

It's difficult for me to read this piece objectively. I know Erin and the Freedom Writers. I have seen the effects of their work and the effects Gruwell's methods can have when implements in the classroom.

I smirked when reading, "Many of the students I’ve known won’t sit down unless they’re repeatedly asked to (maybe not even then), and they don’t listen just because the teacher is speaking; even 'good teachers' are occasionally drowned out by the din of 30 students simultaneously using language that would easily earn a movie an NC-17 rating."

These things are true in my own school, in every school I've ever scene since joining the profession.

Admitting Moore's understanding and knowledge of the subject, I disagree with his premise. Yes, educators need more support, trust and pay. We need hope too. While I do not expect my teaching to have the same effects or results as Gruwell's, I need movies like Freedom Writers, Blackboard Jungle, Stand and Deliver, etc. to remind me of what education has the possibility of becoming.

I've sat through enough parent-teacher conferences to know that is the true business to which we've dedicated our lives - realizing potential.

To succeed in a system where much of the old guard wishes to maintain the status quo and the new recruits are focused on keeping their heads above water, sacrifice is often the best way to accomplish what is most important - getting through.

Perhaps movies like Dangerous Minds are dangerous to the profession, planting false expectations in new teachers and a critical public. I acknowledge they could lead to an attitude of "see, a real teacher will forsake love and personal happiness to save the students she teaches."

When we reach the precipice of this mindset, though, the same key is necessary as I use when calming a hot-blooded student - perspective.