I Agree With Jay – Whiny, Lazy, Teachers

October 26, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

A few days ago, Jay Cronley of the Tulsa World wrote an editorial which sent legendary #oklaed blogger Rob Miller a bit over that edge from which he otherwise enjoys the view.

In it, Cronley suggests that schools receiving poor marks on the state’s vague, insulting, widely discredited A-F report card stop their whining and simply do what schools getting high grades do.

I’m all for that. It’s embarrassingly obvious, in retrospect – if you want a better football team, publicly degrade the coach, sure. But just as critically, only accept good players on your team. That’s how the so-called “real world” works, yes?

You only blame the coach when it’s clear there’s sufficient talent on the roster, but not enough points on the board. (Right, Bruce Boudreau?) Otherwise you need to get busy making trades and securing draft picks. Cut the dead weight from that locker room!

The schools not doing well are thus either lazy or stupid. Despite the best efforts of the state to push them into the light, they’re still letting pretty much every little loser turd-child walk in the door several days a week and play school with them. Seriously, TPS and others so inclined? This is why the Dallas Cowboys keep losing – no quality control at all.

Forget remediation. If those little parasites can’t read-to-learn by the end of 3rd grade, kick their little asses OUT. Go hang with the Factionless, Billy. Oh, wait – you won’t get that allusion BECAUSE YOU CAN’T $#&@ING READ.

What else are we supposed to do to them?

No, seriously – I get that school-shaming and teacher-blaming are supposed to motivate excellence (thanks, Stalin), but once the schools and teachers are done whining and complaining and are finally ready to step up, what exactly would you like us to do to force these little failures to learn gooder?

Surely you don’t believe that scribbling a few letters and numbers on a piece of paper and mailing it it to their fake address drives the average 11-year old to excellence, do you? Grades are horrible motivators unless the kid already carries an unhealthy fixation on them derived from whatever her parents have indoctrinated her to believe about herself.

But those aren’t the kids getting us in the damn newspaper. So what else could we try?

I suppose a good talk with the average 8th grader about his college and career prospects might motivate him to give up the Xbox and plow through that 17th Century sonnet one more time.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh, that was rich. I needed a break from all this serious talk.

The maximum reach of “future planning” among freshmen is about eleven minutes. It’s delusional to expect teenagers to have better self-control and long-term focus than most adults when asked if they want bacon on that.

We’re not actually allowed to hit them anymore, so that’s off the table. Based on a handful of classic rock albums from the 70s, that may not have worked well anyway.

Let’s see… No lunch until you solve for ‘X’ more efficiently? Also not allowed. The Liberals keep acting like none of the dumb kids eat enough to begin with, so forget that.

Torturing pets got a bad rep back in the 80s when we were trying to prove that every child everywhere was being molested by every adult everywhere, so that won’t get board approval. And torturing the actual children is sadly inadequate – hence the entire discussion over test scores to begin with (EYES FRONT NO TALKING NO READING NO SLEEPING JUST STARE AND KEEP STARING UNTIL TIME IS CALLED RELAX AND DO YOUR BEST OR FAIL FAIL FAIL!!!)

Other suggestions?

I’m a little surprised we don’t rank their parents and publish the results. There’s simply no healthy competition when it comes to child-rearing. I say we give kids vouchers and let them leave their $#% parents to join those who’ve already proven they can bring up children properly. The tax breaks are for kid-raising, not kid-having, right?

What’s that? The best families won’t all gladly open their hearts and homes in massive efforts to turn around years of less-than-ideal upbringing and reverse several varieties of cultural dissonance which have been in place for centuries? Surely you jest. They need only do what the good parents do…

It’s probably a moot point. Any kid with the gumption to take advantage isn’t the one getting us on the ‘F’ list anyway.

So we’re back to faulting teachers for not sufficiently inspiring them. If police would police better, there’d be no crime. If columnists would just write better, everyone would still read the newspaper. Seems only reasonable that if teachers to would teach harder…

The penalty for doing poorly in school is to keep repeating the parts you hate until you hate them even more. If that doesn’t work, we’ll begin taking away the few things in our control which you DO care about or value in yourself (in those few instances we’ve somehow connected with those to begin with) until you drop out or change districts and our scores improve that way.

Other than that, what is it that Cronley and the populace at large think we should be doing? I’m 100% serious here – what is it you believe all of these stupid, lazy, sucky teachers COULD be doing but aren’t?

Better yet, why don’t you come show them? Bring your little platitudes and patronization and take over their classes for a month or two?

I know, I know – who would POSSIBLY fill the critical life-altering role of writing a few columns a week taking potshots from the sidelines?

Oh wait – that’s my $&#@ing SPECIALTY! Got you covered!

So go coach those kids into excellence. If they pass whatever random set of politicized and poorly framed expectations we’re swearing by THIS year, they’re practically guaranteed a fulfilling lifelong career, food, housing, health care, and access to a multitude of other services. If they DON’T, they’ll be stuck at home smoking weed and playing Xbox while guaranteed food, housing, health care, and access to a multitude if other services.

The main difference in the latter scenario, of course, is that NEITHER of you will be working as a result. If that doesn’t inspire them, I can’t imagine what will.

As to to merit pay, if the teachers with the best scores are the most talented, it stands to reason that James Patterson is the world’s most profound writer and Kim Kardashian the finest thespian of her generation. Now if only Donald Trump would run for President based on his impressive outcomes, all of our problems would be solved!

Cronley and the rest might oughta start making those lesson plans. Between the open hostility of our state legislature towards knowledge in general and ongoing abuse from the press, those stupid lazy teachers dumb enough to work with those bottom-feeder kids tend to bail after not-very-long-at-all.

They leave the state, sometimes even the profession, or they compete with one another for a handful of slots at those “good schools” – the ones smart enough not to try to win high stakes games with undesirable players. The ones with better demographics, or stronger magnets, or more stable populations.

The ones doing what the good schools do.

RELATED POST: Assessments & Grades – Why? (from 2014)

RELATED POST: What’s Next, #EdReform?

Blue Serials (10/25/15)

October 24, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I’m pretty sure the appropriate thing for a blog like mine to do this time of year is to adapt a Halloween theme in some unnecessary way and dress it up with trite visuals. I am, of course, SO above that.

It’s pure coincidence that everything you should have read this past week involves something scary. Stop judging me.

Grades Are Scary. Being Asked To Justify How We Grade Is Scarier.

Grading Process A Mystery For Many Students And Families – My newest #educrush, Ali Collins, aka SF Public School Mom, joins those questioning ‘traditional’ grading methods – especially that part where we assign various letters without coherent justification. She even has the audacity to suggest that students deserve actual feedback on the specifics of their work and pathways to *gasp* improve! Typical West Coast radicalism if you ask me. Follow @AliMCollins on the Twitters, but be sure to wear some flowers in your profile.

Frankenstein Is Scary. Old Books With Themes And Stuff Are Scarier.

The Creature Speaks: Why I Still Teach Frankenstein – We all knew JennWillTeach was sassy and irreverent, but apparently she kinda really teaches and knows about books and stuff also. This is the second time reading her literary commentary has made me feel smarter. I thought that was the exact opposite of what literary analysis was supposed to do! “Every chance I get, I will continue teaching Frankenstein because it can still speak to a modern audience… He represents every person society pushes to the fringes; he represents every child seen as not good enough by society; he represents every human made to feel ugly and unlovable. As Mary Shelley quotes in her book, “Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay/To mould me man?” (Paradise Lost, X, 743-744). The creature did not ask to be molded, but it lay in Victor’s hands to help him on a path to creativity or a path to destruction.”

Forget that trick-or-treat nonsense – it’s gettin’ all human condition up in here. Tweet your pitchforks and torches to @JennWillTeach on the Twitters and maybe she’ll do “Puttin’ On The Ritz” for you later. #oklaed

Business Types Wanting To ‘Help’ Education Is Scary. The Government Wanting to ‘Help’ You ‘Teach Correctly’ Is Scarier.

Gates Support – Between Rob Miller and myself, we’ve said far too many nice things about Peter Greene at Curmudgucation lately. Despite that deluge, this was one up on which I could not pass. In this post, Greene ponders the many uses of the term ‘support’ by money people in reference to educators.

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Perhaps he’s being unfair. Hitler supported the Sudetenland, Dumbledore supported Harry Potter, and Ronan supported Gamora, right? The key is not to get too hung up on insisting that language maintain a tether to reality. Find a much more orthodox type of ‘support’ from @palan57 on the Twitters.

The Unknown Is Scary. The Unknown That Smells Funny Is Scarier.

This Lesson Stinks, Literally. Teaching Sensory Details in Narrative Writing – You know those brilliant ideas that seem so obvious once you’ve been exposed to them, but you’d have never thought of them yourself? No? That’s just… um… that’s just me? Well, OK then – but if you had known what I was talking about, this would be one of those. Follow @JackieCatcher on the Twitters and as one of the four regular contributors to Three Teachers Talk. (Look, it’s not a math blog – they’re English types. It’s probably a metaphor or gerund or something. )

Sticking Stuff In Your Ears Is Scary. Sticking Stuff In Your Ears 200 Years Ago Is Scarier.

18th Century Hearing Aids – OK, OK… All Things Georgian isn’t normally the sort of thing which makes the weekly highlight reel, nor are they #oklaed. But… I’m so thankful for this site. It’s just so… how it is. Read this. It’s short. You’ll want to marry it and have its babies, I promise. Follow @joannemajor3 and @sarahmurden on the Twitters. You’ll feel so cultured in specialized miscellany as a result, and gladly lose yourself there time and again.

Finally, Here’s a Golden Moment From Days Gone By (about 75 of them) & Worth A Revisit. It’s Not Scary, But Involves People In Costumes, so…

Teach Like an X-Man – Josh Flores at the inexplicably titled JoshFlores.net draws one of my favorite analogies between teenagers and fictional mutants. I never read the comics, but I love me some X-movies. What if we could help each of our darlings master essential curriculum, sure, but do so while becoming comfortable with their wings, their ability to walk through walls, or the strange way the weather adapts to whatever mood they’re in? The line between annoying misfit and superhero is flimsy at best, woulnd’t you say? I love this one. Watch Flores mutate on the Twitters at @MrJoshFlores. #oklaed

Happy Halloween (almost), if you’re into that sort of thing. Be one of the good guys. This life is daunting enough without bad guys.

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Blue Serials (10/18/2015)

October 18, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I made the mistake last weekend of suggesting that we should consider the possibility that there’s more to a fulfilled, meaningful life than that which is measured by the state tests required to graduate high school. You’d think I’d declared all math an abysmal waste of time, all science a fraud, and recommended the ideal path to a diploma would consist primarly of smoking a little weed and lying around in a pile naked.

I am a product of my presumptions, to be sure. I see the world through the filters of my experience and my convictions – we all do, I suppose. For those of us swimming in a reality defined by data-based such-and-such or assessment-driven so-and-so, the line between ‘higher scores’ and ‘happy future’ quickly blurs. It’s the only way to explain how otherwise sensible people working within the bureaucracy of public school systems in the heart of the midwest can insist with conviction that they are doing so despite global competition for their position – and only holding their own because of their ability to answer grammar trivia on a computer screen under tightly controlled conditions.

There are, nevertheless, plenty of successful people who could not currently pass OK EOI exams – and far more whose success is built on things we clearly don’t consider priorities, judging by what’s mandated and tested. While I didn’t realize what a controversial statement I was making by suggesting such things, I still insist that – if this particularly limited, distorted, and obsessive body of knowledge is SO ESSENTIAL to anyone getting a job, finding love, or deciding between Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime – the legislators mandating the exams should gladly take the tests themselves to establish their own worthiness to hold the very positions from which they issue such dictates.

Can you imagine testing day at the Capitoll?

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There are some people with the credibility to talk to us about school, however – and in case you missed it, here’s some of the best of what they had to say this past week…

Scott is a Wannabe Innovator – Scott Haselwood on Teaching From Here is pretty sure we all need to get a bit more serious about #edtech. He shares some of his experiences leading into this, and issues a challenge to the rest of us to step up our risk game a bit. I was so startled I nearly dropped my chalk into the mimeograph machine! I may not always understand Haselwood when he gets all post-20th Century on us, but he’s Charter #11FF and therefore absolutely correct about everything he suggests. Find Scott on this very modern ‘Twitter’ thing using one of your ‘computers’ or ‘smart phones’ at @TeachFromHere. #oklaed

So What Are We Doing Here? – I don’t know if Haselwood and Link Lowe of Donuts In The Lounge are besties or not, but they do seem to be on the same screen when it comes to tech. Lowe challenges us to look at available tech “just as we do any other tool in our #edutoolbox. If it is the best tool for the job, let’s absolutely use it but if it’s not, then you’re using a screwdriver to saw wood.” Use your tool to find Lowe doing the Twitters with great effectiveness at @MrLoweOfficial. #oklaed

Wordsworth’s “The World Is Too Much With Us” – Like Haselwood, JennWillTeach is flagship #11FF and wisdom therefore flows from her loins like honey from a comb. (See? Anyone can be poetic if they try. I was hoping it wouldn’t end up quite so laden with innuendo, of course – but who am I to question the Muse?) On her JennWillTeach blog, she shares what I hope will be the first of many insights into favorite content pieces and how she helps break them down for students. As someone born with a bad case of Poem Illiteracy, I can’t tell you how gratifying it is to read something like this and feel both smart and challenged at the same time. If Jenn had been my teacher in high school (despite her being about eight years old at the time)… well, I’d probably still have been in trouble all the time and failed that unit. But it would have been much more fun along the way. Follow @JennWillTeach on the Twitters. #oklaed

We should check in and see how that core curriculum assessment is going with our legislators…

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Huh. Well, that does explain the whole ‘tax cuts for prosperity’ approach, I guess.

Carrying Each Other – On a bit heavier note, Rebecka Peterson on One Good Thing reminds us of something none of us like to admit – we can’t fix it all. All the struggles, all the people, all the nightmares… we’re just teaching a little school and hoping it’s enough. Peterson suggests, though, that it’s not always about the fixing so much as the mourning with those who mourn. Yeah, I know – serious stuff. But well worth the read. Rebecka is on Twitter at @RebeckaMozdeh. #oklaed

And When This Is Done… – To wrap things up, Sherri Spelic at The Edified Listener looks at her plate, and decides that maybe she has more control over what goes on it and how she frames those things than perhaps any of us generally admit. I’m not so good at the thoughtful-wise-sharing thing myself, so I’m glad a treasured few others are. She’s one of them. Think back at her on the Twitters at @edifiedlistener.

Surely things are going better in OKC by now. One last look at the powers-that-be and their no-doubt-ample-success with the required curriculum…

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Huh. Oh well.

Go be amazing, my darlings! You are a big friggin’ deal this week, and every week thereafter! Reward yourself with a hot, fluffy biscuit.

Of Hockey Bias And Edu-Paradigms

October 17, 2015June 12, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I have a confession. One which is likely to shatter your adoration for my suave veneer and perpetually professional perspicacity. In fact, send the children out of the room, because –

I like hockey.

More specifically, I like Dallas Stars hockey – especially when mingled with the weird world of Hockey Twitter Commentary during games. When you follow and love the same team, you become a strange little community… not exactly friends, but more than random fans at the same game. It’s fun. And maddening. And sometimes just odd.

Then there are the feels…

Of course, emotions can run dark as well as light. I mean, it’s live – so there’s that. It’s also semi-anonymous. Even those using their real names aren’t real people in your real life with real faces and real feelings, right?

I realize the logic falls apart pretty quickly there, but that’s kinda my point.

It’s also Twitter, meaning “not a private line” – anyone in the world can look up what you’ve written and hold you to it. This has the potential to become a thing when controversy and strong emotions mix.

Often, during hockey, controversy and strong emotions mix.

Especially when someone gets hurt. Not normal hockey hurt – but ‘uh oh, that looked bad’ hurt. This happened Thursday evening when the Stars visited the Tampa Bay Lightning – a particularly strong team loaded with offensive talent and surrounded by a passionate fan base.

I don’t follow many Tampa people, but response from the Dallas end was predictable…

Hedman – the player receiving that hit – left the ice and didn’t return.

And then it got uglier – in the game AND on Twitter – with what looked like retaliation – and that’s also where it became interesting from more than a hockey standpoint.

I respectfully suggest that what unfolded over the next few minutes was a lesson in perspective and assumptions, with maybe a few big words like ‘confirmation bias’ thrown in for good measure. I’d also argue that the lessons potentially learned from this round of Twitter Fallout could be applied in realms ranging from political arguments to interpersonal relationships to discussions over education reform.

See, some of us got pissed.

My outrage was not without provocation. I’m at home on my couch, watching events unfold on my TV. The camera zooms in on the injured player – MY injured player – while the Stars’ broadcast team expresses concern over his condition. As the extent of his suffering becomes clear, the crowd’s applause swells in the background – and with it, my blood pressure, my adrenaline, and my just-two-beers-I-swear-fueled sense of injustice and twitter-outrage.

It is clear, it is unspeakable, and it is objectively horrific.

Except the crowd in Tampa watching the game live didn’t view a half-dozen slow-mo replays of Benn’s hit on their guy – who they feel like they know and care for. They saw it once in real time, maybe a replay on the Jumbotron, and their guy was hurt enough to leave the ice – which brings the feels. Nor would they have side-by-side video comparing it with the retaliatory hit a minute later.

As the kerfuffle brews after the hit on McKenzie, most people physically there would be drawn to the developing scuffle, the potential for a rather large-scale fight. So yeah, the cheering increases – but we’re experiencing two different things. I’m watching McKenzie, MY GUY, listening to familiar voices confirming my fears; they’re watching a potential fight of all-on-all at a live event with only group feels to drive their reactions.

On the surface we appear to be reacting at the same time to the same events, but we’re not exactly working from the same reality. It’s not just that we disagree – we’re not even addressing the same things.

Time for more preconceptions to enter the mix…

My hockey world consists largely of TV viewing and Stars Twitter – a mixed group, to be sure, a bit cynical and sometimes pissy as hell, but not a group which generally chants for blood or demonstrates pleasure when someone gets injured – no matter what the team or circumstances.

Well, maybe if it were Corey Perry. But otherwise, never.

We tend to give one another the benefit of the doubt when, you know – THE FEELINGS – so when I’m challenged on my interpretation, it is through that lens:

Look what the power of relationships and presumed goodwill can do to change the tone of a discussion. I don’t even KNOW these guys in real life. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never even interacted with Kedge online before.

But we see ourselves as ‘on the same side’, and consequently I receive their comments much differently than I might otherwise. We’re all suddenly showing our bellies and reassuring ourselves that we’re all good.

Take a moment and mentally apply this to any of your favorite realms of recurring consternation – political, social, personal, or professional – and the parties involved.

Imagine the change if we began with different assumptions about one another. I’m not saying all intentions are good or all participants pure-of-heart – just that we might wait until they’ve established actual malice before proceeding under that paradigm.

In other words, let’s not be like me during hockey.

The next day I was called out by someone I don’t know at all – a writer who covers the Lightning. By way of perspective, writers for SBNation.com contribute as a labor of love – they’re not making serious money; they’re fans.

I asked for clarification, and he referred me to his comments of the previous evening:

What’s the difference in perception?

Well, he knows his team, for one. He has history with the players and a feel for what they are or aren’t likely to do. He probably attends live games in Tampa, and thus sees things through arena norms compared to my televised paradigm. When I’m watching hockey, I’m a fan participating in social dynamics; when he’s watching, he’s a fan doubling as a reporter.

I’m not saying he’s right. Don’t be ridiculous. Clearly I’m far more outraged, therefore justice is on MY side.

But I AM suggesting that there’s something to be gained by viewing circumstances through other lenses. His dissent – while not particularly warm and fuzzy – was also not personal. He finds my thinking bewildering… perhaps inane. But that’s what he attacks – my position. He can even explain why he thinks so, with just the right amount of tone.

OK, maybe it’s a tad belittling – but still…

I’ve been attacked on Twitter in far more juvenile ways, I assure you. It’s a gift I have, bringing out that side in others. And me, so demure and naïve in the ways of the world.

I have absolutely no interest in some sort of passive relativism preventing us from arguing or resolving anything as we scrape and bow before one another’s point of view. God knows if we’re going to make any meaningful progress in the realm of public education (or anything else) we’ll need vigorous and thoughtful debate.

But perhaps those debates will be more productive and our own insights a bit richer if we begin with different assumptions about one another and work from there.

Unless it’s during hockey.

RELATED POST: By Any Means Necessary

RELATED POST: Condemnation Bias

RELATED POST: Cognitive Dissonance

Volume and Power (A Borrowed Post)

October 16, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Almost a year ago, Peter Greene of Curmudgucation wrote a piece (well, several actually – but I’m zeroing in on one in particular) about the kerfuffle then occurring in Newark, NJ. A number of students and adult supporters had begun showing up various places where Cami Anderson – their District Superintendent at the time – was speaking, and demanding their concerns be heard.

Greene of course effectively tackled the specifics of the issue, but his analysis included some broader thoughts which resonated with me rather strongly:

{Rick Hess of the AEI} is upset that they {the protestors} aren’t called out more for being so vicious, but he is especially bothered by their hypocrisy. How can they demand to be heard while stifling the speech of others? And not even get ripped for it in the press?
Rick Hess is a smart guy. I often refer to him as one of my favorite writers that I usually disagree with. But I think he’s missed a point or two here.
The Hypocrisy Defense.
This is always a lousy defense, no matter which side is using it. The situation is usually something like this – I punch you in the face, and you holler, “Hey, man! It’s totally wrong to punch someone in the face!” But I keep punching. When you finally punch me back, I call “Hypocrite.” It has two benefits. One is that it keeps the conversation away from discussing whether or not I’m punching you in the face and whether or not that’s bad behavior. The other is that you can only win the hypocrisy argument by letting me punch you in the face without ever hitting back.
“Hey, you’re being hypocritical” is often a rough translation of “No fair! You promised you weren’t going to fight back!”

I really enjoyed that part. It was the next bit, though, which I’ve paraphrased repeatedly in the year since – with students as well as adults:

Voice and Volume
Now, I think it’s probably true that the Newark folks may have been a bit unruly…
But instead of looking at this kind of hollering as a moral failing or a breach of etiquette (one simply doesn’t holler at a think tank luncheon), let’s look at it for what it really is– the demonstration of a simple principle. I learned it years ago running committees, and confirmed it in many situations since then. It’s a simple two-part principle of voice and volume.
1) People want to be heard.
2) If they do not believe they are being heard when they speak, they will keep raising their volume until they believe they are being heard.
I can’t begin to count the number of difficult situations that I’ve seen defused by one side actually stopping and listening to the other. I can’t begin to count the number of difficult situations I’ve seen made worse by one side trying to deal with dissent by silencing it.
It’s Basic Leadership 101. You cannot get rid of disagreement by silencing its voice. I don’t mean you shouldn’t, as in a moral imperative (though I believe it is one) – I mean you can’t, as in it just doesn’t work. People want to be heard. If they can’t be heard when they speak, they will keep raising their volume, even to the point of rude and untoward behavior at proper thinky tank luncheons.

He ties this in to Anderson and the specifics of the situation, then returns to broader principles:

Volume and Power
I want to make one other observation about this raised volume thing. It’s almost always a class and/or power thing.
When people with money and power feel they aren’t being heard, they also raise the volume. But because they have money and power, they can raise the volume by spending $12 million to set up slick websites, or establishing “advocacy groups” to push their agenda out through their connections, or having polite luncheon dates. If Bill Gates thinks people aren’t really hearing what he has to say about education, he gets out his checkbook or makes some phone calls. If Anderson and Hess feel that they aren’t going to be heard, they retire to the studio in another room to record a professional-looking video to distribute through their internet channels; meanwhile, the folks they left behind are stuck recording their chants on cell-phone videos on the hope someone might pick them up on YouTube.
Ordinary folks like the citizens of Newark don’t have the rich and powerful options. They can’t drop a few million dollars on an ad campaign or make some quick calls to highly-placed people of power and influence. When people without money, power or status want to raise the volume to be heard, they don’t have any options except literally raising the volume and getting loud and unruly and even obnoxious. And then we can cue the complaints about their tone and rudeness and general misbehavior. Why they can’t just be quiet and polite and unheard? Goodness!
The fact is, civil discourse is great– if you have money and power and connections to back it up… “Let’s all calm down and try to speak nicely,” are the words of the people with power. “Listen to me RIGHT NOW DAMMIT,” are the words of the powerless, unheard, and frustrated.
There is a solution
I learned this ages ago. If you don’t want people to scream at you, do not try to overpower them, shout them down, or force them to shut up.
Listen to them.
The formula is not, “If he calms down, I will listen to him.” Or, as I used to tell my children, the only person you can control is yourself. So make yourself do the listening. Then the calm will come.
Am I saying that this dynamic resolves all individuals of responsibility for how they conduct themselves? No, it does not. In a perfect world, people should be polite and respectful most of the time. But in the immortal words of the philosopher Dr. Phil, you teach others how to treat you. And if you teach people that approaching you quietly and respectfully will get them ignored, you can’t be surprised that they learn the lesson that being quiet and respectful and civil is a waste of their time. When it comes to these interactions, you can teach them whatever lesson you wish.

Teachers know this, by the way. We learn it – easy ways or hard – every day dealing with teenagers who don’t want to be where they are at the moment, doing what’s asked of them at that juncture. We learn that when we try to stifle their frustrations, they tend to get louder.

We cannot, as a practical matter, give them full vent against ‘the man’ all day, every day – but a little listening and validation goes a long way calming the more blatant demonstrations of discontent.

Sometimes when you Really Listen, you discover that you really do need to really change your plan. At the very least, it may require you to explain yourself more clearly than you have.
You can have civil discourse and reasoned debate. But you have to go first. And you have to listen. And you also have to accept, if you’re dealing with a horrific festering mess like Newark, that you are going to have to listen to huuuuuuge amounts of fairly angry stuff, because all the things that you’ve been refusing to listen to all this time have not gone away– they’ve gone into a big escrow account and now they are going to come out with interest. You don’t get to say, “Can’t we start fresh? You forget all the times you didn’t have a say, and I’ll forget all the times I didn’t let you have one, and we’ll start even.”

I wish he’d explained this to me before my first three marriages.

The first rule of civil discourse and debate and free speech is you have to extend the opportunity to everybody. What would have happened, I wonder, if AEI had said, “Tell you what. Let Cami speak, and then when she’s done, we will give you the podium, and the only rules is that everybody has to let everybody else have their say” instead of “Security, get these hooligans out of here.”
But in the US education landscape, we have far too many places where reformsters have decided that the route to success is to just stop listening to large chunks of the population. This is a recipe for disaster, and if wannabe leaders keep pursuing it, a few dozen cranky paid registrants at a thinky tank luncheon will be the very least of their problems.

I’ll spare you my thoughts on how this insight is best applied at this particular moment, but it reaches far beyond the realm of #edreform.

My whole goal in quoting Greene so extensively here is, in fact, to allow easy reference to what I believe to be an essential reality – however persistently it’s ignored by those clinging shakily to power.

Listening should be more than token nodding, but certainly need not be conflated with ‘concurring’ or ‘acquiescing’. Even if your primary goal is to convince someone else of just how right you are, surely understanding them better makes that job easier, rather than more difficult?

Whether we’re debating education policy, social norms, politics, interpersonal relationships, or issues of faith… if our rules, ideas, and pathways forward are as wonderful as we think, are they really so very threatened by a little honest dissent?

**My thanks to Peter Greene for his permission to quote his work so extensively. Follow @palan57 on the Twitters, ‘Like’ Curmudgucation on Facebook, and of course follow his edu-bloggery at http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com.