Confessions

May 7, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 3 Comments

This is not a year I’ve been proud of.

I’ve had a few over the past sixteen years that have sucked for reasons largely outside my control, but this is the first time since those first few semesters that I’ve felt almost entirely responsible – not as a cause, but as someone who knew better in terms of MY responses, and didn’t do it.

For… *sniff* – the children.

In years past I’ve been a pretty consistent hard-ass – quality of work, organization, due dates, etc. Like most teachers, exceptions abounded with circumstances. I’ve lost count of the number of individual deals I’ve made with students in difficulty, whether weird personal lives or academic struggles. If they’re trying, we’ll work something out.

I’ve had to stifle overt hostility every time we’re told from the golden podium to give 50% to students who haven’t shown up or done anything yet because some kid in an anecdote had a tough October and we’re too jaded and dillweedish to let them ever recover.

“Damn – they’re on to us! We got into this profession so we could cackle maniacally at the unjust failings of children! We especially like to crush the ones living in their cars, working three jobs, and taking care of eleven siblings even though they don’t have fingers or eardrums. Fail, Enrique! Fail!”

Apparently I don’t always stifle it.

But over time, reading enough tweets, enough blogs, enough articles, I softened. I weakened. I caved. Some of it was genuine doubt whether I could possibly be right and so many people smarter than me be wrong. Much of it, though – and this is where the self-loathing begins – much of it was laziness. The time and effort necessary to keep pushing every kid, to remember who was absent when and what that means for their make-up work and who had surgery and who was on a cruise, and the stories from other teachers about the parent calls, and emails, and meetings, and administrators, and…

Most headaches can be easily avoided if you pretty much accept anything a kid gives you, whenever they give it. I lost a battle drawing some lines with a parent years ago (by following district policies, no less), and haven’t wanted to do that again. Every time I’d watch what other teachers were going through simply for holding to basic expectations, I’d pat myself on the back for knowing better than to go down THAT road again.

I knew I was condemning my kids to much harder lessons down the road because I wasn’t willing to fight for their academic souls here, this year – when we all still basically love them and want to help them. This is the safest place in the world to struggle, or even fail a little. Not later, not somewhere else.

But I wouldn’t see it – their eventual awakening. I wouldn’t know how much harder it would be later. But I do.

That’s the wound; here’s the salt:

This ‘flexibility’, this over-generalized ‘compassion’, didn’t work. Not for behavior, not for grades, not for anything. The more flexible I became, the more students were mired in a swampy mixture of all the stress one would expect from academic and personal overload but the actual productivity one would find in a 19th century San Francisco opium den. They were doing less and less, but freaking out about it more and more.

What they eventually produced wasn’t usually very good, and often lacked context or use. Despite my most vehement exhortations, I couldn’t convince the majority of those so mired to keep up with what we were doing right now, in class, rather than dragging through that content review from last month’s quiz that they never seem to finish before they lose it and start over.

“What does it matter WHEN they learn it?” Turns out it matters a whole damn lot.

True student collaboration became impossible because only a slim majority of students were prepared to contribute in any useful way. Class discussions or even direct instruction became less and less effective because it’s hard to build on something a third of them haven’t learned yet, and might never.

History may never be easy, but it’s much less onerous when it’s experienced in order, and learned actively, together. Those opportunities vanished as I gradually ended up with 140 students in 40-50 different places, some analyzing and writing with great sophistication and others who’d pretty much ignored weeks of foundational work but suddenly wanted to get their ‘Skills Grades’ up and who had to be taught from scratch.

It wasn’t just academics. I let too many little stupid things slide early in the year because I was trying to be more understanding of their individual quirks and needs and such. When I did assign something punitive, like lunch detention or some sort of service work, I’d quickly lose track of the paperwork as some would attend, some wouldn’t, half were absent that day anyway, and others were in detention already from another class, and… and…

Eventually I just returned my energies to lesson planning and teaching. I now have a dozen kids throughout the day who aren’t “bad kids,” but who are 15 years old and still behave like a special needs group of 3rd graders when the spirit moves. I can’t skip the paperwork trail of consequences and just throw them all out in frustration (nor would I wish to), and there are four weeks left.

So I’m making do.

The worst part of it is, I’ve failed my best kids. Their grades are fine, but they learned early on that most of my energy, most of our curriculum, most of their headaches would be dictated by the bottom 20% of the class. I suppose this in many ways is preparing them for the ‘real world,’ but I hate creating so many cynical little Republicans before they can even drive.

I’ve failed my ‘challenging’ students because they’ve learned nothing, other than that they can pretty much do what they want and still move right along – thus reinforcing the very thing we complain about from our middle schools, who have about as much power to change that system as we do.

I’ve failed my ‘average’ kids because they weren’t pushed beyond quiet mediocrity, staying below the radar and not causing trouble. Not exactly the motivational poster I signed up for.

This freshmen class came to us as one of the least motivated, most pampered, quick-to-collapse, easily distracted, helpless, hopeless, shallow little nurslings I’ve ever encountered en masse, and I’ve accomplished absolutely nothing in challenging or changing any of that. There are some diamonds, believe me – and I love them all, somehow. But I fear for the rest if reality ever catches up.

Maybe it won’t. Maybe our society has evolved enough that the consequence for irresponsibility, ignorance, and apathy, is food, clothing, shelter, and days spent drifting aimlessly and checking their phones obsessively. Maybe it’s not a teenager problem, but imminent national collapse. And maybe I can’t change any of it.

But here’s what I CAN do. I can resolve next year to risk seeming merciless in my expectations, rigid in all things responsibility-ish, and demanding in my demeanor. I’ll fight the fights over standards and behavior, with or without official backing. I’ll lose some of them, but I’ll go down kicking and screaming – not because I’m an asshole who wants kids to fail, but because I love them. I want better for them. I want hope for them. And because I know from long, painful experience that the only true fulfillment or growth comes from actually accomplishing things. Actually learning stuff and doing things.

I’m sure we have about a dozen motivation posters to that effect in this hallway alone. Maybe they’ll be my defense.

I may not succeed. I doubt my humble efforts will prove to be some kind of miraculous solution. But I hope by May 2016, I’ll at least have offset some of the scalding awareness that I’ve become part of the problem.

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The Power of Persuasion (To Prove or To Move?)

May 2, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

I came across an amusing piece the other day which I’d seen before, enjoyed, then forgotten. I’ll excerpt a bit so you can get the idea even if you don’t read the full thing right this minute.

Announcement Regarding the Bureau of Caucasian Affairs – BCA
United Native Americans (UNA) is proud to announce that it has bought the state of California from the whites and is throwing it open to Indian settlement. UNA bought California from three winos found wandering in San Francisco. UNA decided the winos were the spokesmen for the white people of California. These winos promptly signed the treaty, which was written in Sioux, and sold California for three bottles of wine, one bottle of gin, and four cases of beer…
Of course, whites will be allowed to sell trades and handicrafts at stands by the highway. Each white will be provided annually with one blanket, one pair of tennis shoes, a supply of Spam, and a copy of The Life of Crazy Horse…
All courses will be taught in Indian languages, and there will be demerits for anyone caught speaking English. All students arriving at the school will immediately be given IQ tests to determine their understanding of Indian Language and hunting skills… Each hospital will have a staff of two part-time doctors and a part-time chiropractor who have all passed first aid tests. And each hospital will be equipped with a scalpel, a jack knife, a saw, a modern tourniquet, and a large bottle of aspirin.
Certain barbaric white customs will, of course, not be allowed. Whites will not be allowed to practice their heathen religions, and will be required to attend Indian ceremonies. Missionaries will be sent from each tribe to convert the whites on the reservations. White churches will either be made into amusement parks or museums or will be torn down and the bricks and ornaments sold as souvenirs and curiosities…

It’s effective satire. It bites enough to hurt, but it’s still funny. It’s what John Stewart does when he’s at his best – throwing out a little red meat to those who already agree, and sharply prodding those who don’t, moderated somewhat by humor.

But sarcasm and hyperbole are risky if you’re serious about changing minds (as opposed to being funny or venting a tiny bit of rage). If they work, they really really work – but if they don’t, they alienate and offend. Risk big, win big – or, you know, fail.

Sometimes we have to consciously decide whether we’d rather be right or be effective. Standing our ground on moral absolutes is all well and good – and sometimes the only acceptable choice if we’re to live with ourselves. But are there pathways to positive change that don’t require either the complete submission of our adversaries or sacrifice of our own foundational values?

In 1851, a largely unknown former slave going by the name ‘Sojourner Truth’ took the stage at a women’s rights convention in Akron, OH. There are several versions of her exact words, but something pretty close to this segment shows up in all of them:

I have heard much about the sexes being equal; I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now.
As for intellect, all I can say is, if woman have a pint and a man a quart — why can’t she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much — for we won’t take more than our pint will hold.
The poor men seem to be all in confusion and don’t know what to do. Why children, if you have woman’s rights give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and there won’t be so much trouble.

There are two things about this argument which I really like and from which I hope to learn.

First, Truth doesn’t pick fights she doesn’t need to or take on battles she probably can’t win. She works as much as most men? That’s easily verifiable. But intellect… that’s trickier. How would you even measure that? They didn’t have Common Core back then, or IQ tests, or even those ‘Which Failed 1970’s Sitcom Are You?’ quizzes.

Truth doesn’t bother arguing what she cannot prove. IF a woman has a pint only, while you men have quarts – fine. Why not let us fill up our little pints?

That’s much more difficult to refute. She gives her detractors little to kick against, while still claiming the rights for which she’s orating.

Second, Truth frames what she wants in terms compatible with her opponents’ needs – “the poor men… don’t know what to do.” Let the ladies have their little rights and you’ll feel better. They’re not wanting so very much. You need not sacrifice much to appease us. Things can get back to normal.

Sometimes it’s a bit more layered…

In 1830, a “Workingman’s Committee” was assembled in Philadelphia to “ascertain the state of public instruction in Pennsylvania” and propose improvements. Whatever their official status, their report reads like blue collar fathers wanting better for their children:

It is true the state is not without its colleges and universities, several of which have been fostered with liberal supplies from the public purse. Let it be observed, however, that the funds so applied, have been appropriated exclusively for the benefit of the wealthy, who are thereby enabled to procure a liberal education for their children, upon lower terms than it could otherwise be afforded them.

And you thought vouchers were a brand new scheme.

The Committee could argue for better funding so their kids would have more opportunity, lead richer lives, get better jobs. They could even bust out terms like “college and career ready.” But I suspect they knew those with political and economic power cared little for such things, whatever lip service may have been paid. They had to find something their targets DID care about – a common cause which could still nudge along their specific hopes:

Funds thus expended, may serve to engender an aristocracy of talent, and place knowledge, the chief element of power, in the hands of the privileged few; but can never secure the common prosperity of a nation nor confer intellectual as well as political equality on a people.

Whoa there, cowboy – an aristocracy of what?!

The original element of despotism is a MONOPOLY OF TALENT, which consigns the multitude to comparative ignorance, and secures the balance of knowledge on the side of the rich and the rulers. If… the healthy existence of a free government be… rooted in the WILL of the American people, it follows… that this monopoly should be broken up, and that the means of equal knowledge, (the only security for equal liberty) should be rendered, by legal provision, the common property of all classes.

They called on shared ideals. Who was going to argue against “of-the-by-the-for-the”?

This is a common tactic used still today, although often much less convincingly. Every time a politician or business leader speechifies that “what Americans want is _______” or proudly proclaim they “BELIEVE in buzzword, patriotic catchphrase, and congruent parallel third item!” they’re trying to use shared values to persuade. They just do it so badly it makes us hate them.

But this committee did it beautifully.

In a republic, the people constitute the government, and by wielding its powers in accordance with the dictates, either of their intelligence or their ignorance; of their judgment or their caprices, are the makers and the rulers of their own good or evil destiny…
It appears, therefore, to the committees that there can be no real liberty without a wide diffusion of real intelligence; that the members of a republic, should all be alike instructed in the nature and character of their equal rights and duties, as human beings, and as citizens; and that education, instead of being limited as in our public poor schools, to a simple acquaintance with words and cyphers, should tend, as far as possible, to the production of a just disposition, virtuous habits, and a rational self-governing character…

Like I said before, I’m all for standing unashamed on your convictions. There are times when budging one more inch is simply unacceptable! Immoral! When we’d rather fail with flair than move forward in shame and the ignominy of “compromise”!

On the other hand, if your goal is to change something, we may need to set aside such glories for a bit. The Committee at some point had to decide whether they cared more about venting their true spleen regarding inequity and the power structure of the society around them, or improving education in a meaningful way for their kids.

Sound familiar?

Listen to those whose cooperation you require. What’s important to them? What common ground do you share? At the very least, what argument will they find hardest to deny or refute?

“In a republic, the people constitute the government” may or may not be entirely true in practice, but it’s a hell of an argument, and one no good ‘Merican is likely to openly oppose. “We don’t want dumb people ruining things for everyone else” is particularly savvy if your target audience is made up of the rich and powerful who tend to be tired of, well… dumb people ruining things for everyone else.

Remember “island-hopping” in WWII? We don’t always need to win every part of every battle. Why sacrifice actual progress for idealistic – er… for letting ourselves end up in – well…

Is there a culturally appropriate term for ‘Chinese finger traps’?

Sometimes the best arguments are made by taking an existing idea or text and substituting, like the Declaration of Sentiments did for women’s rights, but it’s not a particularly entertaining read. And sometimes a little outrage and passion can grab hearts and minds, circa William Lloyd Garrison.

But honesty can still be subtle. Persuasion can be intelligently coy, surely.

Your assignment for next time: an excerpt from Harriet Jacobs, an escaped slave who wrote of her experiences and published them in 1861. What does she want? How does she use vocabulary and shared ideals to convey her feelings and nudge a variety of readers towards her worldview? In what ways does this excerpt demonstrate the importance of HOW we write as much as WHAT we write about?

It’s serious stuff, on a subject worthy of outrage. I respectfully suggest she gives us something better – effectiveness.

I’ll expect your analysis typed and double-spaced, on my desk by morning – or NO STICKER FOR YOU.

I now entered on my fifteenth year–a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl. My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import… I turned from him with disgust and hatred. But he was my master. I was compelled to live under the same roof with him–where I saw a man forty years my senior daily violating the most sacred commandments of nature. He told me I was his property; that I must be subject to his will in all things. My soul revolted against the mean tyranny.
But where could I turn for protection? No matter whether the slave girl be as black as ebony or as fair as her mistress. In either case, there is no shadow of law to protect her from insult, from violence, or even from death; all these are inflicted by fiends who bear the shape of men. The mistress, who ought to protect the helpless victim, has no other feelings towards her but those of jealousy and rage.
The degradation, the wrongs, the vices, that grow out of slavery, are more than I can describe. They are greater than you would willingly believe. Surely, if you credited one half the truths that are told you concerning the helpless millions suffering in this cruel bondage, you at the north would not help to tighten the yoke. You surely would refuse to do for the master, on your own soil, the mean and cruel work which trained bloodhounds and the lowest class of whites do for him at the south.

Oh – #11FF BCE Coffee Cup if you really submit something (email or comment below) before I follow up with mine. They are rare and coveted – and the next one could be yours.

RELATED POST: By Any Means Necessary

“Experiencing These Effects And Sinking Under Them” (Edu-vice from 1850)

April 28, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

What follows are excerpts from Popular Education: For The Use Of Parents And Teachers, And For Young Persons Of Both Sexes. Prepared and Published in Accordance with a Resolution of the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Michigan, by By Ira Mayhew, A.M. – Superintendent of Public Instruction (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 82 Cliff Street. 1850)

Say what you like about old books, they sure titled their titles.

And 1850? Let’s get a little perspective on that date…

The very concept of taxpayer-funded public schooling was less than a generation old, and all but non-existent in many areas – including most of the South. Millard Fillmore was President. California became the 31st State of the Union. Slavery was still entrenched in half the nation, and Harriet Tubman was beginning her work as a ‘conductor’ on the ‘Underground Railroad’ in defiance thereof. P.T. Barnum was screwing people out of their nickels and dimes – a much less romantic pursuit than we seem to have made of it postmortem. Electricity wasn’t really a thing yet, nor was recorded music, radio, etc. Fancy travel meant your wagon was covered, or in rare cases you rode on a train. Internet was still dial-up.

It was a long #$%@ing time ago is what I’m saying.

And Supt. Mayhew was commissioned – by an act of the State Legislature, no less – to write a book on learnin’. Which he did.

He breaks down a proper education into three critical elements – the physical (health and body), the intellectual (brain stuff), and the moral (used interchangeably with spiritual). Other than the anachronisms associated with his constant reference to scripture and man’s soul, it’s fairly dry reading – until I got to this part. I ‘bout spilt my coffee in recognition of the issues confronting Supt. Mayhew and his teachers in 1850.

Excerpt from Chapter V: The Nature of Intellectual and Moral Education
It is generally known that the eye, when tasked beyond its strength, becomes insensible to light, and ceases to convey impressions to the mind. The brain, in like manner, when much exhausted, becomes incapable of thought, and consciousness is well-nigh lost in a feeling of utter confusion. At any time in life, excessive and continued mental exertion is hurtful; but in infancy and early youth, when the structure of the brain is still immature and delicate, permanent injury is more easily produced by injudicious treatment than at any subsequent period…

I don’t actually know how physiologically true this is, but experientially I at least get the ‘tired brain’ part. I do know enough about early childhood development (hey, I had to take those classes in teacher school same as you) to know there are certain things kids just can’t do at some stages, and that it’s generally harmful to over-try.

It’s interesting to me how similar this language was to arguments explaining why girls shouldn’t be given complicated toys, like puzzles, or be allowed to over-exert themselves physically by doing things like swimming for more than eight seconds at a time – they might be damaged, you see. I bring this up despite it detracting from the case I’m about to make, partly because I’m SO intellectually honest, but mostly because – like so many things – it’s all about best guesses on sliding scales. Balance in a changing world.

In this respect, the analogy is complete between the brain and the other parts of the body, as we have already seen exemplified in the injurious effects of premature exercise of the bones and muscles. Scrofulous and rickety children are the most usual sufferers in this way. They are generally remarkable for large heads, great precocity of understanding, and small, delicate bodies.

OK, I mostly just kept this part because I’m amused by the phrase “scrofulous and rickety children” and picturing their big ol’ heads. Yes, you may add that to the list of reasons I’m probably going to teacher hell.

But in such instances, the great size of the brain, and the acuteness of the mind, are the results of morbid growth, and even with the best management, the child passes the first years of its life constantly on the brink of active disease. Instead, however, of trying to repress its mental activity, as they should, the fond parents, misled by the promise of genius, too often excite it still further by unceasing cultivation and the never-failing stimulus of praise; and finding its progress, for a time, equal to their warmest wishes, they look forward with ecstasy to the day when its talents will break forth and shed a luster on their name.

This is when I first began to recognize tendencies not unfamiliar today – although the over-achieving parent stereotype is fading a bit as we’ve begun to recall there being more to life than GPA and college prep in kindergarten. But as a culture of ‘reform’ and ‘high standards’, we are certainly still enthralled by the potential of over-farming young soil.

But in exact proportion as the picture becomes brighter to their fancy, the probability of its becoming realized becomes less; for the brain, worn out by premature exertion, either becomes diseased or loses its tone, leaving the mental powers feeble and depressed for the remainder of life. The expected prodigy is thus, in the end, easily outstripped in the social race by many whose dull outset promised him an easy victory.

Again I must question the physiology of this statement, while supporting its spirit. Whether or not the young brain becomes ‘diseased’ or ‘loses its tone’ through excessive intellectual demands in early development, the young brain-owner may certainly become disconnected, and lose his or her connection to the wonders of learning in those early years (when they still liked us and wanted to know stuff – secondary people forget this was ever a thing). When we beat our young pegs so incessantly into pre-shaped holes, we may get some of them wedged in, but we lose them in all the important ways.

We lose them for a long, long time – sometimes for life.

Those allowed to develop at a more flexible pace, nurtured but not machine-tilled, often not only catch up but sail right on past the rest. Not always, but enough that those high stakes 3rd grade tests look pretty stupid in retrospect.

One of my favorite stories from a former state superintendent was her account during a TV interview of her own son, who struggled to learn as a kid and had all sorts of trouble in school. He was never ‘held back’, but instead was surrounded by dedicated teachers who supported and encouraged him until, one year, he suddenly started to ‘get it’. By high school he was on level and above in every area and is now a happy, employed, successful citizen. That’s how it works sometimes.

(This story was told as evidence we should hold kids back in an eternal 3rd grade loop of shame and disparagement, which I didn’t really understand – but then, she was an odd duck like that.)

I’m going to skip ahead a bit. It’s a history thing – we pick and choose the bits of evidence that make our case and ignore the rest. We learned it from our friends who teach science.

There can be little doubt but that ignorance on the part of parents and teachers is the principal cause that leads to the too early and excessive cultivation of the minds of children, and especially of such as are precocious and delicate. Hence the necessity of imparting instruction on this subject to both parents and teachers, and to all persons who are in any way charged with the care and education of the young.

As in, state legislators?

This necessity becomes the more imperative from the fact that the cupidity of authors and publishers has led to the preparation of “children’s books,” many of which are announced as purposely prepared “for children from two to three years old!” I might instance advertisements of “Infant Manuals” of Botany, Geometry, and Astronomy!

He was kidding. Imagine him visiting The Learning Tree today!

There’s also a Common Core joke just waiting to be made here, but it just seems like piling on at this point – like making fun of Nixon, or a good ‘Ozzy Osbourne’ joke.

In not a few isolated families, but in many neighborhoods, villages, and cities, in various parts of the country, children under three years of age are not only required to commit to memory many verses, texts of Scripture, and stories, but are frequently sent to school for six hours a day. Few children are kept back later than the age of four, unless they reside a great distance from school, and some not even then.

Imagine what it took in a big city in 1850 to seem like you were being TOO HARD on young people. We’re not that far past Dickens or much ahead of Newsies here – these were not years of pampered youth. Send them to the factories and coal mines if you must, but DON’T BE SO CRUEL AS TO OVERDO THE TEST PREP at such a young age!

Perspective, much?

At home, too, they are induced by all sorts of excitement to learn additional tasks, or peruse juvenile books and magazines, till the nervous system becomes enfeebled and the health broken. “I have myself,” says Dr. Brigham, “seen many children who are supposed to possess almost miraculous mental powers, experiencing these effects and sinking under them.

What a powerful phrase – “experiencing these effects and sinking under them.” Take a moment and mourn over that.

Some of them died early, when but six or eight years of age… Their minds, like some of the fairest flowers, were ‘no sooner blown than blasted;’ others have grown up to manhood, but with feeble bodies and disordered nervous system, which subjected them to hypochondriasis, dyspepsy, and all the Protean forms of nervous disease; others of the class of early prodigies exhibit in manhood but small mental powers, and are the mere passive instruments of those who in early life were accounted far their inferiors.”

Imagine a society in which that early cult of accomplishment led to stressed out high schoolers trying to make it into the right stressed out colleges to get the stressed out jobs where they must accomplish pass do prove make achieve… what? What’s the end goal? What’s the point of any of it? What test is the last one before you ‘win’?

Good thing we headed that off in 1850. Close call, that.

Jumping ahead again…

In youth, too, much mischief is done by the long daily periods of attendance at school, and the continued application of mind which the ordinary system of education requires.

I realize letting your kid play outside results in visits from the police and DHS these days, but it’s still a pretty good idea.

The law of exercise already more than once repeated, that long-sustained action exhausts the vital powers of an organ, applies as well to the brain as to the muscles. Hence the necessity of varying the occupations of the young, and allowing frequent intervals of active exercise in the open air, instead of enforcing the continued confinement now so common. This exclusive attention to mental culture fails, as might be expected, even in its essential object; for all experience shows that, with a rational distribution of employment and exercise, a child will make greater progress in a given period than in double the time employed in continuous mental exertion.

If a long-dead superintendent from 1850 understood the value of a varied, balanced life – not only for personal happiness, but because it MAKES YOU A BETTER STUDENT – why are we so stubbornly ignorant of this 165 years later?

Tell your kids – your own, personal kids – to skip their homework tonight and go play outside, or ride their bikes, or exercise. Not video games or even books – although both are yay – but go DO something. Take fewer AP classes so they can stay in Drama or Soccer. Be happy with that state university so they have time to hang out with friends from church or volunteer at the animal shelter.

Chill the f#$% out. It’s better for them. Ira said so:

It is worse than folly to shut our eyes to the truth, and to act as if we could, by denying it, alter the constitution of nature, and thereby escape the consequences of our own misconduct… Such persons might be saved to themselves and to society by early instruction in the nature and laws of the animal economy. They mean well, but err from ignorance more than from headstrong zeal.

Let’s Get Pedagogical

April 24, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

I started blogging in March 2014, when the thoughts I had regarding the then-upcoming #oklaed rally demanded the world’s attention. (You see this wit and wisdom as a gift; I alone understand they are my burden to carry.)

A few months later I was halfway ‘round the world in a wrap-up session for a teacher workshop with which I’d been privileged to assist, and wishing there were a workable way to preserve or share some of the strategies, materials, and other ideas we’d discussed that week – something more than a notebook or a flash drive or even the miracle that is Dropbox.

I’ve visited lesson plan websites before, and most of them… well, they don’t do much for me. This may simply be because I’m a teacher snob, or because those busy being amazing educators have little time to walk me through their mysterious ways. They may even have lives after school – better things to do than this.

Maybe I’m just not looking correctly. For all I know, there are dozens of great secondary History/ELA sites which I’m simply too clueless to have discovered. I’ll probably get links to all of them in response to this post – for which I’ll be legitimately grateful.

Or maybe it just doesn’t work that way. I have zero concern public school teachers can ever be replaced by computers on a meaningful scale, for example, because the human interaction, connection, and persuasion is simply too major a factor in dragging these little darlings into the light – if only for those brief moments. And if fancy software can’t teach my kids as effectively as a minimally competent nose-breather with a bachelor’s degree, how can a website become any more useful a resource than those ancillaries we used to get so excited about at new textbook time? (May the edu-gods forgive us for the decisions we made based on transparencies and test-maker discs.)

But maybe the only way to talk about teaching is to be physically together, TALKING about TEACHING.

Besides, most lesson plan sites are elementary and early middle school heavy – which I totally get. We expect teachers at that level to cover everything in every possible style with all kids for the entire day. There are a few sites heavy on the Powerpoints or educational video clips, etc., which have been useful for starting ideas from time to time. I’m absolutely NOT knocking anyone’s site or resources. They just weren’t doing anything for me.

But despite all that, the vanity of even considering… I mean… seriously? A teacher resource site?

Blogging is one thing – it’s challenging enough, and the time it takes, and never really knowing if it matters, and yet there are your innards, time-stamped and misspelled, for all the world to browse without comment or to ignore while you pretend not to care because you’re not doing it for that, dammit!

At least I’ve heard that’s what it’s like for others. It’s brought me nothing but admiration and adoration across the edu-blogosphere. But I do so try to stay in tune with the little people.

To begin posting 15 years of my favorite lessons, materials, ideas – most borrowed from sources I don’t even remember and modified on the fly no matter how many times I use them – is insane, right? Much of the flavor has to be lost in translation. Too much explaining is limiting, and insulting to teachers perfectly capable of figuring out how to make an idea work in their reality; too little explaining leaves new teachers or those looking to try new things without enough to go on.

Most people already do this stuff anyway, right? Or if they don’t, maybe it’s because there are so many better ways to do it. Or this other reason, or that factor over there, and what about – ?

The reasons it’s a horrible idea are legion. But I moved from a blog to an actual website to allow for the possibility, and for a year now I’ve done only minimal work on that part of things while focusing on wowing the world with my insights, charm, and general lack of decency or shame once I’m riled about something.

But it’s time.

The feeling won’t go away – the gut desire to try it. To go big or go home. Time to put some of those favorite platitudes to the test:

“The Learning Happens in the Struggle”
“Better to be Wrong than to be Afraid”

and

“Irresponsibility: No Single Raindrop Believes It Is To Blame for the Flood”

(That last one is on the wall of my classroom next to several other Demotivational posters I find to be far more true and thus far more useful than the traditional pablum involving bicyclists silhouetted on mountain tops.)

So, as the #11FF have already noticed, I’ve been slightly less active on the tweeter thing and somewhat less prolific in the bloggery as I wrestle with what and how in regards to waxing pedagogical. But it’s gradually being built, and pushed out there.

Help yourself. If there’s something you already know, or already do better, skip it. If there’s anything you like or find interesting, help yourself. If there’s anything you want, it doesn’t hurt to ask. If I have it, I’ll see what I can do. If not, I may know a guy who knows a guy… The plan is to keep adding things as time allows and inspiration dictates. Right now it’s rather minimal – but if I wait until it’s “done” to push it out, well… you know the rest.

If you’re not particularly hard up for the basics, but need something engaging and low-stress to do during or after testing, I’m pretty proud of these document activities.

My only request is that if you use something and it works particularly well, or if you change it in some way that makes it better, or even if you discover a fatal flaw not anticipated by the materials or the instructions, drop me a line. It’s not personal at this point – it’s really just an effort to put some things out there for people to use if and when it’s helpful.

Because how cool would that be?

Classroom Management, 1920’s Style (Part Two)

April 24, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been revisiting the chapter on “Classroom Control” from Vol. I of the 12-volume The Class Room Teacher (1927-28). We were introduced last time to a very listy list of possible methods:

(1) No control, wherein the children all do as they please.
(2) Teacher control, wherein rules are made and enforced by the teacher.
(3) Group control, wherein rules are made and enforced by the group working together for a common purpose.
(4) Unselfish self-control, wherein each person considers the good of the whole.

Has much changed in 90 years?

NO CONTROL – Example:
The teacher is attempting to carry on a class recitation with one group of children while the others are supposed to be studying. Two or three large boys are lying on the floor with their feet propped against the stove. They are reading fiction which does not contribute in any way to their assignment. They later show a lack of knowledge as to the lesson content. Several girls are holding an animated conversation about the ways of securing pictures of the favorite “movie” actresses.

This passage is golden.

The chaos meant to be implied by those ‘large boys’ with the feet on the stove would be a dream come true in many classrooms today. And ‘reading fiction which does not contribute in any way to their assignment’ is almost an oxymoron in 2015 – ANY reading is cause for cupcakes and stickers. But don’t sue me when you burn your feet.

And aren’t you curious about what sundry, presumably devious means might have been utilized to secure those pictures? Can you even imagine a time you weren’t inundated with celebrity photo spreads every time you had to pick up a few things at the grocery store? Or when girls worried about illicit pics meant b&w head shots of actresses? Monday, Tuesday, Happy Days…

The children who are trying to study have to dodge continual volleys of chalk, paper-wads, and even an eraser now and then. A note of unsavory character is passed about among the older children who laugh heartily at its contents.

In case we’re not sufficiently horrified by the stove thing, here comes a barrage of projectiles and dirty notes. I KNEW we should never have allowed pens and paper in the classroom – such technology has no place in school without careful controls in place! It’s too distracting!

The room is in an uproar; the recitation is a complete failure; but the teacher smilingly assures the visitor that she believes in “freedom.”

Oh god, I know those teachers. I thought they were products of the 1970’s – I didn’t know they existed almost two generations before.

Discussion:
The result of no control is always chaos; children are denied the right to feel happiness in real achievement; habits and attitudes are formed during these years in the school room which may tend to make of them, in later life, unreasoning, selfish, and lawless citizens.

This is a point which could stand to be made more often and more loudly today – the deepest happiness, the most meaningful learning, real character comes from actually accomplishing something. Guide them, yes; encourage them, definitely; but unless they’re allowed actual risk – a real opportunity to fail – they’re being deprived of a legitimate opportunity to succeed.

Why is this so easy to understand with our football teams and debate competitions, but so controversial in reference to academics?

Perhaps it might be well to state that true freedom would not allow such an infringement upon the rights and liberties of others.

There’s a year’s worth of socio-political debate for you.

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True freedom is something which should be earned and bestowed only upon those who can use it wisely. All teachers should be very careful to distinguish between real freedom and merely allowing children to do as they please. Real freedom leads toward right and true happiness; while allowing children to do as they please leads toward wrong and toward future sorrow.

“True freedom is something which should be earned and bestowed only upon those who can use it wisely.”

Today I believe that would qualify as a ‘controversial statement’. Keep in mind that the 1920’s were still enmeshed in Progressivism – regulating the sausage factories and establishing national parks and such. It was also the age of more direct control of all levels of government by the ‘common man’, in hopes this would prove, um… purifying.

With this increased role of government in solving society’s problems came efforts to prevent recurrence of those same ills. Why bandage the wound but leave the sharp edge exposed? Why support a humidifier and a dehumidifier in the same room? It seemed only reasonable, for example, to require sterilization of those unable to provide for themselves or their offspring.

If it’s cruel to allow stray animals to continuously breed (thus perpetuating their collective misery), why allow those among our own species who’ve clearly demonstrated an inability to care for themselves to make increasingly destructive choices about procreation? “If you want me to take care of you, there are conditions. If you want to make your own choices, you’ll need to learn to take care of yourself.”

It seems so reasonable in regards to student management. As long as we don’t let what we’re doing in school impact real life…

ABSOLUTE TEACHER CONTROL – Example: When the class assembles on the first day of school, the teacher firmly informs the children that they are there for business and she is there to see that they attend to this business of learning. In order to accomplish this, certain tasks must be finished each day before they leave school. Anything which interferes with the work of school, such as talking without permission, whispering, giggling, or writing notes to one another will be carefully noted and punished by the teacher.

Ah… so it’s a math class!

Ever after the children study the lessons assigned by the teacher, answer her questions, and accept the punishment she doles out for misdemeanors and errors. They usually do no more than they are asked, and frequently they misbehave when the teacher is not looking.
The teacher’s life is one of constant watchfulness. Her profession is not teaching; it is policing. She must be continually alert to catch the law-breakers, fair enough to pronounce just punishment, and persevering enough to see that punishment once pronounced is executed.

And a charter school at that! (Erin – I’m kidding! I’m kidding!)

Discussion:
Such a method is far preferable to the preceding no-control type and should be used, especially by the inexperienced teacher, until she can determine the type best suited to her class of children. If used by a teacher who is always just and fair, the class achievement is usually good and the children rather happy. If, perchance, the teacher is a benign tyrant, the children will often vote this type of control the best of all, because, like many adults, some children dislike sharing responsibility and making choices.

Whoah, there, Sherriff – I was with you until that last little bit.

As colorful a term as ‘benign tyrant’ may be, it’s a bit too loaded with connotation for my taste. One of the things too easily overlooked in our kneejerking any time those high-structure charters are discussed is that some students, in fact, do very well with so much structure.

There’s absolutely a problem when it’s abusive, and the racial issues inherent in some of these schools bother me, too – but let’s not write off the idea that there’s some security in knowing your day will be organized and methodical, your teacher tough but fair, and that the rules apply pretty much the same way to everyone, every day. Especially if you don’t have this in any other part of your world.

As to “sharing responsibility and making choices,” recall that only a few lines before, freedom had to be earned. I know all you ex-hippies out there with your ponytails and elbow patches want your lil’ charges to discover the universe in their own special and wildly individualized ways, but there’s a name for that kind of freedom – “chaos.” Or, if you want to be more social-political-science-historical about it, “life in a state of nature.”

Feel free to look it up.

Under this system the children usually do the right thing, not because they know it is the right or why it is the right, but because they are trained to obey blindly. The great danger here lies in the fact that they may form habits of following blindly, and later may unthinkingly follow unworthy leaders.

Wouldn’t THAT be a shame?

No teacher should be content to use this type continually unless she is handling groups, who, because of limited capacities, will always be obliged to “follow a leader.”

Ah, she means (insert whatever political party you don’t belong to), doesn’t she?

As soon as possible each group of children should be given a share of the responsibility for its own mental and moral achievement. The teacher should covet the position of guide and advisor rather than one of policeman.

Therein lies the rub. How do we transition students appropriately from compliant to independently responsible? I don’t know about the feet-on-the-stove issue, but THIS one resonates a century later. All too well, actually.

Next Time – “The Ideal Solution,” in which it is revealed that…

Daise was sobbing too much to talk, but the indignant lad and a dozen others could tell. John had given Daise a branch of Japanese cherry blossoms to bribe her not to report him. Before the investigation was over it developed that eight-year-old Daise had become richer by a box of raisins, two candied cherries, and a chocolate bar – all for not doing her duty.

Dear god – it’s pure madness in there. And ladies, never trust a boy bearing Japanese cherry blossoms.

RELATED POST: Classroom Management, 1920’s Style (Part Three)