Blue Cereal Celebration: Hit Me Baby, One More Time

March 18, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

There’s nothing sadder than not talking about me anymore.

I mean, we can still TALK about me. Often. In glowing terms. But the week devoted specifically TO that purpose is rapidly drawing to a close.

But it’s not over yet. So hit me baby, one more time. (Situations like this are pretty much what that song is about, right? In my naive youthful innocence I can never be sure.)

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I started this week of Blue Cereal Celebration with my 10 Most Viewed Posts/Pages – to great internal accolades, I must say. I’d like to finish with my Top 5 Personal Favorite Posts Not Already On Some Other List This Week^TM. (If this becomes a new thing with the other edu-bloggers, remember that you saw it here first. It’s freakin’ brilliant, if you ask me.)

I’m certain it goes without saying that they’re some of your favorites, too.

My 300 Epiphany (8/10/14) – Teaching can be a noble profession and all that. I mean, we don’t do it for the money or the glory or the clarity of expectations from above. We do it because on some naïve, idealistic, melodramatic level, we want to change the world.

But I don’t think of it that way anymore. I have found great freedom and comfort, actually – and I share this without cynicism or sarcasm – in the fact that I’m pretty sure we’re going to lose. Those who are with us are far, far fewer than those who are against us, and whether you use Common Core math or give up and figure it the old way, we are totally and completely screwed.

But it is a good day to teach.

The Gettysburg Address: Parts I, II, and III (4/14/15+) – Before I committed to focus on Oklahoma politics and legislation during 2016, I loved writing history-related posts. While they didn’t prompt the most views or comments, the responses I did receive were some of the most thoughtful and gratifying.

That’s partly my own briilliance and style, but mostly because I have the smartest, sexiest, most thinkiest readers in the universe.

This little trilogy on Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” came out particularly well. It’s also sparked some great email conversations with other teachers. Maybe now it will spark a few more.

I’d Rather Be Aquaman (9/25/14) – Written during one of the ‘Does AP U.S. History Glorify America Enough?’ crises, this post is about the choices every history teacher, and textbook, and movie, and curriculum-writer, has to make. It’s also about allowing real live dead people the same humanity and complexity we find so compelling in fictional characters.

I particularly liked this line: “We can’t narrow the gap between young people and American ideals by doing a better job bullsh*tting them.”

Don’t tell Jay, He missed this one first time ’round.

A Little Knowledge, Parts I, II, and III (2/21/15+) – Another trilogy – this one about secession, the power of education, and rewriting history to fit our manipulative needs.

Of course you know how history teachers are – when we talk about the past, we’re usually trying to analyze the present. If only there were contemporary situations in which we told one another agreed-upon lies about history and fought enlightenment in others in order to better marginalize and mistreat entire classes of people. Perhaps a current example of some sort will eventually come to mind…

I’m SO deep!

Liberty, Parts I & II (6/1/15+) – A pair dedicated to a topic we spend MUCH time on in my American Government classes…

Most Americans are big fans of “liberty”, just like we love to talk about “justice” and “opportunity” and “heroes” and “high expectations.” The difficulty comes when we try to clarify just what those words mean in practice.

That’s when it sometimes gets ugly.

Does “liberty” simply mean a lack of overt constraints, or does it suggest actual agency and opportunity? What are the limits and necessary supports for liberty – especially the kind that’s supposed to with “justice for all”?

*pause*

And that’s… that’s it for the week of Celebration.

*sniff*

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Now – Let’s Talk About The Way Forward and the Brand New, Classroom-Ready, TLE-Proof, BCE #11FF Pedagogy Protection 5″x7″ High Quality Magnetized Magnet…

How It Works

Administration observing you? New teachers sitting in on your classroom? Parents concerned about a lesson you taught or a strategy you used, or even a grade you gave their little boo-boo?

Just point to the magnet and nod – slowly, but confidently. You pass, all 4’s, discussion over, thanks for coming.

Looking for a new gig somewhere they hate teachers less? Or simply trying to persuade your local legislator that you’re not a complete idiot standing alongside the highway of life with a ‘Will Teach for Food’ sign?

Point to the magnet.

Students challenging your classroom management? Whining about the subject matter or all that thinking you’re making them do? Maybe your principal is trying to interrupt your class for another $#%& assembly?

The magnet.

You’re gonna want one of these. You’re gonna want it bad.

Two Ways To Get It

(1) Push any Blue Cereal post or content page by Tweeting it or sharing on Facebook. Comment or frame it in some way so it seems personalized, not randomly selected and widget-sent.

Sell it with your eyes, baby – sell it with the eyes.

Make sure you tag me or use #11FF or otherwise let me know – my intentions are pure, but my brain is old and my attention span unreliable.

(2) Enlighten others about #OKElections16 – The resources on this website AND in general. Talk to your co-workers, meet with your department, and calmly, rationally explain some of the issues impacting #OklaEd this year and EVERY legislative session. Encourage them to GET INVOLVED.

Better yet, ask your building principal for 5 minutes at the next faculty meeting to encourage co-workers to get informed and start voting in state primaries this June. Suggest their spouses or other family members run for office themselves – I’ll help raise the $200 filing fee if need be. Offer to help them GET INVOLVED.

As long as you’re not telling people who to vote for, there’s not even gray area in encouraging teachers to learn more and do more about the issues which impact them and their students.

Oh, and don’t be all wild and frustrated like me – do that calm, wise thing you do so well.

It takes verve to do this, and some of you will start uncomfortable conversations different than those you’d intended. THAT’S OK – you got this. It’s even OK if you don’t know every detail about every bill or every legislator.

This isn’t about what we already know and have already done – it’s about what we’re willing to learn and how much we’re willing to do.

Then, let me know. Email or DM me with your story (short or long – I’m curious, but I know you’re busy). I’ll send you a couple of the BCE Magnets as token thanks and acknowledgement that you’re awesome and Totally Forever #11FF. If you’d like extras for co-workers who responded supportively, I’ll send more – up to a dozen at a time if you believe it’s merited.

I trust you – you’re #11FF. You tell me what’s appropriate.

If you’re not in Oklahoma, but fighting similar battles in your edu-world, that works, too. You just let me know – same offer, modified as YOU see fit.

Know in advance that you amaze me every day, my darlings. I wish I was half the person and a quarter of the teacher most of you can be. Be stubborn but graceful, wise but humble, and keep changing the world.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

Blue Cereal Celebration: Out With The Old…

March 17, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I’ve discovered the last few BCE #11FF Steaming Hot Nectar Receptacles. There are a few more than I’d realized, but far fewer than demanded by the adoring masses.

Never let it be said that we don’t suffer in the 21st century.

You may have noticed a new banner logo on the website. It was time for a change, and I like the part where I can’t be sued for using it without permission.

I’m quite in love with it, actually.

That means it’s time to ship the remaining #11FF mugs to the final group of winners for this particularly coveted item. Here’s all you have to do…

Between now and the end of Blue Cereal Celebration Week (Saturday 3/19/16 at Midnight), find and promo your favorite posts or other pages from the BCE website. Tweet them, Facebook them, get them shown during the previews at your favorite drive-in, whatever – but make sure you tag me or otherwise let me know so I can add your name to the queue. The use of the official #11FF hashtag is strongly encouraged as well.

Unfair preference will be shown to those of you who comment on the link as you send it, or otherwise personalize it in a “I didn’t just click the ‘share’ button” way.

Flattery and even outright kissing-up are not merely tolerated, but encouraged.

There’s also a very real chance I’ll rig the contest in favor of anyone pushing out something I’d forgotten I liked, or something that doesn’t always receive the same attention as my vitriol and obscenities over current events.

Once these are gone, the first wave of Blue Cereal #11FF memorabilia is complete. The second wave begins next week with the Brand New, Classroom-Ready, TLE-Proof, BCE #11FF Pedagogy Protection 5″x7″ High Quality Magnetized Magnet.

Administration observing you? New teachers sitting in on your classroom? Parents concerned about a lesson you taught or a strategy you use, or even a grade you gave their little boo-boo?

Just point to the magnet and nod – slowly, but confidently. You pass, all 4’s, discussion over, thanks for coming.

Point to the magnet.

The magnet.

You’re gonna want one of these. You’re gonna want it bad.

But first things first – let’s take a few more days and talk about how wonderful I am. We’ll get to you next week, I promise.

Blue Cereal Celebration: Can’t Win Them All

March 17, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

It’s very rude of real life to have demanded so much of my time and attention this week. I’d hoped to be far more self-absorbed and celebratory.

We may have to add a second week…

By nature of my own narcissism, I’m mostly celebrating the positives and the wins of the past two years. But we’re closer than that, my Eleven Faithful Followers. Honest. Real. Co-delusional.

Sometimes my aspirations outreach my ability. While I’ve learned the importance of sleeping on a ‘final draft’ before editing the crap out of it again the next morning, there are also times I realize that if I don’t hit ‘publish’ it’s just not going to happen.

Sometimes you just have to step off the ledge, whether there’s a bridge there or not.

Here are five posts I really wanted to work. They may not have become all I’d hoped for them upon conception, but I still like what I was going for. I talk a good game to my students or anyone else taking risks in which they believe – I can’t keep that up unless I’m occasionally willing to do the same myself.

Dear Student of Color… (11/21/14) – That past few years have been quite the awakening for me in terms of just how violent, ignorant, sexist, and racist-hateful-delusional we are as a people. Watching the mental and rhetorical backflips practiced so gleefully by so many in order to feel good about beating up and killing black kids, well… it was sobering. And depressing as hell.

This was my first real effort to process that in writing. It was therapeutic, but never seemed to resonate with anyone outside of myself – which I was eventually O.K. with.

Not at first, but eventually.

#WhiteSilence, Teacher Edition (1/16/15) – A few months later, still on a steep learning curve when it came to race and privilege, I was trying to understand… things. This one probably should have stayed in the ‘Drafts’ folder until I had a better idea where I was going with it, but sometimes going live isn’t about the piece being ready so much as just… needing to. So I did.

This one is genuinely not very good. Kids, if someone as gifted and daring as Blue can stumble, it’s OK for you to take risks as well. You’re… you’re welcome.

Revival (8/17/14) – This one wasn’t risky so much as a bit preachy and rambling. Some of the themes I’ve revisited with more success since then, others not so much.

This was nearing the six-month mark of the new blog, and I was still finding my voice. The voice in this post wasn’t what I was going for – it’s more like me after a few beers sitting across the table from someone very good at getting me to talk too much.

I do like the comparison of public education and religious outreach – while not the same, they have much in common, I think.

Of Hockey Bias and Edu-Paradigms (10/17/15) – I may have been too close to this one to be objective. I also suspect that anytime I mention hockey, or music, or any other specific about which readers aren’t personally passionate, I lose the masses before my larger point fully manifests. That’s on me as the writer, of course, but it hasn’t seemed to stop me from doing it – repeatedly.

I thought I was making a pithy point about perspective and relationship and perception. I think I just seemed to ramble about hockey. I can live with either.

Waiting To Follow The Worms (3/2/16) – I know, crazy recent, right? One benefit of having done this for a while is that I’m not as regularly surprised by what works and what doesn’t. This one was difficult to write, partly because it was rather personal and partly because I was insecure the entire time that I sounded melodramatic and a bit foolish. It was also nearly twice as long in draft form, which is never a good thing.

There are things I really like in this one, and I’m glad I posted it, but I knew when I hit ‘publish’ that it wasn’t exactly going viral or doing what I wish I had the power to do. But I’m OK with that most days, and I’m beyond appreciative that you are, too.

This week of Blue Cereal Celebration is rapidly drawing to a close, and we haven’t talked about magnets or my personal favorite posts of all time forever hallelujah yay. Hmmm… I’d better get on that.

Blue Cereal Celebration: Forgotten Favorites

March 13, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

The Blue Cereal Celebration Continues!

A few days ago I shared the Top 10 most-viewed pages of my prestigious two-years of bloggery and webbifying. It was magical for all of us, I believe.

Sadly, not every post is a viral sensation. One of the tragedies of this mortal coil is that some of my favorite pieces never really gained much traction. Perhaps I failed to fully communicate what I intended, or perhaps the subjects simply didn’t resonate with enough readers. Maybe they just sucked.

Nevertheless, I remember them fondly. Now you can, too.

My Five Favorite Posts Not In The Top 10… or Top 50… or Top 89…

All I Need Is This Lamp… (3/27/14) – My second post ever, and the first to garner attention and kind words from some of the legit bloggers (I believe Rob Miller was the first to share it – I nearly wet myself.) While a bit under-developed by later standards, I like it’s point and what I was going for. It’s also the fist time I incorporated primary sources, something that never does catch on but which I so thoroughly enjoy it’s not likely to stop any time soon. Plus, there’s a clip from “The Jerk” – a trifecta of blogging potential.

Useful Fictions, Part II – The Stories We Tell Ourselves (5/3/14) – I used to end up doing these multi-part series on a theme… while there are things I liked about that, in retrospect I wonder if they’re indicative of my inability to get to the point as much as anything. My eleventeen part series on ‘useful fictions’ had potential, however – enough to justify recreating them after the Russian attack in November 2014.

This particular post is the first time I remember a peer from my mostly real life – someone much smarter and better looking than me – bringing up something I’d written and complimenting it. I believe she told me she’d used it with her teachers during a workshop. It was an experience I’m thankful to have enjoyed with a variety of folks smarter and better looking than me since then, and it never ceases to be far more gratifying than wealth or fame.

I assume. I’d be willing to try wealth and fame just to compare, but I’m still pretty sure the results would be the same.

Koko The Gorilla (7/7/14) – The next two posts on this ‘Forgotten Favorites’ list involve striving to understand or express things beyond ourselves and our previous experiences. Ironically, that may be why they didn’t quite catch on – I may have been reaching beyond what I had the talent to express. But so be it – this is still one of my all-time favorites of anything I’ve written. I’m ridiculously proud of it whether anyone else ever gets it or not.

That’s the great thing about getting old (what, you don’t think two years is ancient in blogger years?) – you can just think what you think and say what you say. For instance: “Bite me, Jay.”

Learning R.E.M. (9/15/15) – This post wasn’t really about R.E.M. Well, OK – it was, but not really about them so much as it was about my learning how to listen to R.E.M. and how dramatically that changed everything else forever on every level in every realm.

Which sounds a bit overstated, I guess. But that’s what was tricky about this post.

I wanted to use my experience with a very different kind of music to explore the challenge of exposing students to great literature, or history, or mathy-sciency things, in ways that drag them into the light just enough for the natural awesomeness of knowlege-beauty-truth-chasing-learn-wanting to take hold. It doesn’t happen easily, or often, but that’s kinda what we’re always going for, isn’t it? I thought?

Exactly one month later, I wrote what was in many ways the exact same post with something that hadn’t become life-altering for me, but instead was a big deal to one of my students. I thought that time maybe I’d nailed it, but to this day it has less than 100 views of over 30 seconds. That’s not a complaint, it’s just interesting.

Unlike the post, apparently.

Let’s Talk About Urinals (11/22/15) – This one was fairly recent, meaning it received more attention than earlier posts (I’m blessed to have quite a few more followers than not long ago), but I’d still hoped it would do more than it did. In my childish, yet sophisticated, internal rubric, it’s the perfect balance of catchy title, abrasive humor, and actual analysis of current edu-foolery – in this case, our tendency to substitute grandstanding and rhetoric for actual change or improvement.

If you’re willing to pretend there’s something on this site you believe to be underrated and worthy of international acclaim, and you’re willing to Tweet it out or Facebook it – and tag me so I notice – I still have a very few coveted #11FF mugs left which I’m getting rid of THIS WEEK. They can’t be bought, except with flattery and schmoozing – just ask anyone who already has one.

DON’T WORRY – WE’RE NOT DONE! THE CELEBRATION CONTINUES ALL WEEK!

Blue Cereal Celebration (3/13/16)

March 11, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

It’s my birthday.

Not my person birthday – I’m too old to care about that much anymore. It’s Blue Cereal’s birthday.

Two years ago this week, I started Blue Cereal Education, and – let’s be honest – from that moment, your worlds would never be the same.

For the first six months or so, most of what I wrote was pretty hit’n’miss. The learning curve was steep, as I’d never done anything like this before. Thankfully, Janet Barresi was our State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and while that was horrible for Oklahoma teachers and students, it was GREAT for snarky blogging!

The State Department site alone was a gold mine of edu-horror. *sigh*

In November of 2014, the Russians killed my site. My wife and webgoddess called me with a very concerned voice and told me that while she’d managed to retrieve a zillion pages of text and code, anything I wanted back would have to be completely recreated.

I was SO relieved! What an amazing chance to start over – keeping the parts I liked, editing the stuff that I thought had potential, and tossing the rest.

Dr. Barresi had lost her primary by then and we knew Joy was on the way (in more ways than one), so I didn’t bother with that material. The rest I began wading through, deciding what I liked enough to write again.

It was less than you’d think.

I don’t let myself become too obsessed with analytics and numbers, but of course I check from time to time. (Anyone who says they don’t is fibbing.)

Here are the Top 10 most visited pages on Blue Cereal since that rebuild in November 2014:

(1) End #OklaEd (2/15/16) – This was a blog post from quite recently, as you can see. I assume it’s good news when what you’re writing now is getting more traction than what you wrote back then – otherwise, you quickly become Foghat playing at the state fair.

I’m a bit surprised and pleased at the degree to which this one has surpassed all other posts (it has more than double the page views of the post in second place), since it’s a call for state-wide edu-revolution. You people are a bunch of radicals and trouble-causers… no wonder we get along so well.

(2) Oklahoma Turns Against APUSH? (1/17/15) – This was the first of a series of posts about the attack on AP U.S. History in Oklahoma last year, spearheaded by Sen. Josh Brecheen of Ada, OK, and Rep. Dan Fisher of the largely fictional Black Robed Regiment.

The post is mostly a brief intro – since I knew very little at the time I posted it – followed by the rather extensive text of Brecheen’s bill. So… that’s humbling. I assume it kept the highest hit-count partly because it was first, and partly because it had the most obvious title in reference to the subject matter.

I tend to get a little, um… too ‘creative’ for my own good in naming these things sometimes. It’s a wonder ANYBODY knows what I’m talking about.

(3) Special Election – Senate District 34, January 12th – #OKElections16 (1/4/16) – Another relatively recent post, and another very clear – if not particularly creative – title.

J.J. Dossett won, in case you didn’t know, and while I’m certain there were many, many other factors in play – his campaign, his platform, his timing, his supporters, and the like – I prefer to believe I used my pithy wit and extensive social media influence to annoint the good State Senator as the first of many pro-education types winning office this Election Year.

Return those New Candidate Questionnaires, kids – you don’t wish to offend the king-maker!

(And can we, um… can we NOT tell Dossett that I kinda just claimed credit for his election, even in jest? I, er… I think it’s important he feel like he contributed. It’s good for his self-esteem.)

(4) Roster Villification (11/19/14) – This one surprised me a bit. I was having a bad day, and unlike most of my posts, this was a one-and-done. (Well, I may have edited it once for about 10 minutes.) Then again, the angry and frustrated stuff generally does MUCH better overall than the thoughtful, reflective bits. In fact, you may have already noticed how few of the deep, thoughtful bits made the Top 10. Hmmm…

But I was right about the idiocy of the process. So there’s that.

(5) #OKElections16 – This is the main page for all things related to Oklahoma Elections this year. It’s only been up since the start of the calendar year, and I can’t tell you how gratifying it is that people are accessing it as a resource.

I try to keep the Candidate Profiles interesting, get my Pending Legislation straight, and stay current with the Issues, but this part is not as fun and doesn’t come as easily for me as the bloggery or the lessony stuff. Now that people actually read this site, however, I kinda wanted to make myself useful, and this seemed like something that needed to be done.

I’ll be better at it next election cycle, I have to think. Maybe. If I’m still around…

(6) #11FF – I did NOT see this one coming, but of course it’s SO appropriate that it ranks this high.

When I was writing during that first year, I was all too aware that my numbers were abysmal compared to the legit blogs. But I’m all about the sauce and the inside joke, so from the start I determined that here, and on Twitters, and the Facebooking, I’d always proceed as if the adoring masses were a given.

The thing is, although I didn’t get tons of comments or emails or messages, the ones I DID get were SO good! I don’t mean merely in terms of praising me (although that’s essential and appropriate), but rather… the quality of what you write to me, and how well you write it, and the questions and comments and insights and suggestions… I was a bit taken aback, and deeply gratified. I still am.

This was much better than having adoring masses. These were witty, insightful peers. Booyah – internet gold.

At some point I began referring to regular readers as my Eleven Faithful Followers. When it was time for the first Blue Cereal long-sleeve shirts, the hashtag #11FF was contrived.

I’ll be carrying on more about you guys soon, but for now let me just say – all tone and schmaltz aside – you are some quality peeps. I wouldn’t trade you for ten times the numbers, or a hundred times the money.

(7) Who Killed Avery Chase? Document Activity (4/21/15) – Consistently in the Top 10 each month, I have yet to receive a single comment about whether it’s being used, if it’s working, or how it’s being changed to make it better. I hope the numbers mean someone’s finding it helpful – seriously. I’m pretty proud of these.

(8) State Testing: The Ultimate Solution (7/10/15) – This one is a personal favorite of mine. I thought it struck a nice balance of genuine frustration and teacher-y passion for *sniff*… THE CHILDREN. I’m still like this one quite a bit – go figure.

(9) My Response to Alfie Kohn’s Attack on ‘Growth Mindset’ (8/18/15) – Like I said, conflict gets page views. That’s not why I wrote this one, of course – I’m too pure to be swayed by such logistics. I really hated the piece Kohn wrote and to which I’m responding here.

I was somewhat surprised by how many messages and tweets and such I received which not only supported my post, but wanted to share mutual loathing of Alfie Kohn. I don’t agree with the man on everything, but neither do I consider him a charlatan or a moron or any other bad words which were used in an effort to secure my solidarity. I just thought he was wrong on this one. Really, really wrong.

So, I’m glad all of those people love me, but I was unable to share their vitriol towards A.K. I hope that didn’t ruin the moment for them.

(10) Welcome to Atheist School (2/26/16) – Another recent post, which suggests that my page views are benefitting from the kerfuffle over this session of the OK State Legislature. (In Oklahoma, the legislature meets from February – May each year. The bulk of the damage they do has to happen in this window, so they’re intense months.)

It’s unfortunate that so many posts have to be written about the state of our state, but we’re a mess. At least shining some light on the assumptions of our elected leaders has some small chance of shaping the upcoming elections. In this post, Rep. Dunlap says what many of his peers wouldn’t, but which they THINK anyway – that public schools are godless, decadent places, and the only way young people can possibly learn to be decent human beings is through taking the two mites remaining in public education and giving it to upper middle class white parents so they can rescue their precious darlings from yucky poor people.

I cringe, but I’m also glad it’s out there. It’s not quite as good as legislators this past week reading the Bible on the floor of the State Senate to prove Jesus is against regulating firearms, but it’s part of that same mindset – that it’s their job to put the Old Testament into state law, and that they alone are fit to arbitrate the true meaning of Christian faith on our behalf.

So This Week Is Blue Cereal Celebration Week.

Who better to focus on me than ME, after all?

Thanks for coming along for the ride. You are daring and wise to do so.

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