‘D’ Is For ‘Dilemma’

April 12, 2022June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

‘D’ Is For ‘Dilemma’

I remember sitting down to my very first teacher certification test a quarter-century ago. I’d reported to some obscure little “testing center” hidden in an office complex I’d passed a hundred times without noticing and brought along all the right paperwork. I was armed with a reasonable knowledge of history and plenty of pedagogical theory, with a side of buzzwords and popular edu-trends of the time.

The first section of the exam was multiple choice. I read the first question and marked ‘D’. The second question I felt confident of as well; it also happened to be ‘D’. So was question three. And four. And five.

I stopped after the tenth question and scrolled back through my answers so far. They were all ‘D’.

I was fresh out of teacher school and had completed “Tests and Measurements” only the summer before. I knew darn well that no legitimate exam creation process would play those sorts of games with the answers – ten ‘D’s in a row. It was also considered poor form to do anything to undermine the test-taker’s confidence right out of the gate. Ideally, for example, exams should begin with relatively straightforward questions and only gradually increase in difficulty. “Trick questions” were discouraged in any context, but certainly shouldn’t be thrown in right at the beginning.

I must have been missing something.

I went back through all ten again but still felt fairly certain of my responses. There were one or two that MIGHT have been one of the other options, but ‘D’ still made more sense in each case. So… I kept them and moved on.

The rest of my responses were more or less varied in the usual way – plenty of ‘A’s, ‘B’s, and ‘C’s, along with a few more ‘D’s. I must have done OK; my overall score on that section was well above the necessary cut-off and seemed impressive enough at the time.

Apparently, the first ten answers were all ‘D’, no matter what good pedagogy or standard educational practices said.

Next Slide, Please

It’s almost a cliche by now to note how often professional educators are required to endure some well-intentioned drone (usually from “downtown”) reading – word for word – a PowerPoint presentation of 60 – 70 slides. If you’re lucky, they even include a few single-panel comics… which they read and explain as well. Often they’ll hand out the entire presentation on paper so you can read along – as if THAT somehow makes it better.

On at least two occasions, I sat through ninety minutes of this specifically on the topic of making our classrooms more interactive and engaging. We were scolded in classic Ferris Bueller style (minus even the token efforts at interaction – “Anyone? Anyone?”) about how bad it was to rely on direct instruction. Kids apparently don’t have the attention span for such things – it’s boring and bad pedagogy. The person droning on about this even offered to come help us develop more engaging lessons if we wished.

There was absolutely NO sense of irony indicated.

Some of you may remember when “Prezi” first became a thing. The folks from “downtown” were so excited! I remember vividly the first Prezi presentation I watched and all the many features it included. They started with a page of text… then zoomed way, WAY in on different text, then it swooped over in a circle to some new text before zooming back out to a different part of the original text – all while reading each word to us slowly and methodically. They even described what was happening: “we can now zoom in on this ‘T’ and it says…”

Let’s Go To The Rubric

One of the most bewildering moments in the world of teacher enlightenment came when we were assigned to create rubrics for several different types of assignment. (For any of you unfamiliar with the term in this context, a rubric is an effort to bring clarity and standardization to grading subjective work – art, writing, projects, etc. It allows teachers to bring clarity to their expectations – or at least reduce everything to the same sorts of numbers we use when grading multiple choice quizzes.) The administrator in question wanted more “unified” expectations across the curriculum, starting with a rubric we could all theoretically use to grade student writing.

The problem, of course, is that there are many different types of writing, and what English is looking for in a creative narrative may not be the same as what AP U.S. History demands from a historical argument. Such distinctions were lost on the powers-that-be, however, who insisted that surely there must be some shared priorities – like spelling and grammar, for example. He was correct that we were in agreement on this issue. While we all cared about clarity in student writing, none of us prioritized spelling or grammar over content or overall organization.

I’m pretty sure he was convinced at that point that we were being difficult on purpose.

Eventually we moved on to a different sort of assignment – say, a multiple choice exam. What sort of rubric could we create to promote more unified grading of multiple choice quizzes and tests?

We weren’t sure how to even respond to that one. The very idea demonstrated such a gross lack of understanding of rubrics and what they do that we were genuinely speechless. What’s the professionally appropriate way to tell a superior that you’re not sure how to do what they’re requesting because it’s inane?

Cross My Heart

Such issues become even more maddening when they involve classroom management or discipline. Ask any teacher and you’ll no doubt find a wide and troubling range of examples for the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to administrative responses when students are referred to them for various violations. There are districts for whom “restorative justice” simply means sitting around sharing feelings anytime a student commits a serious violation, then sending them back to class presumably fully redeemed. Other times, administration confuses “zero tolerance” for “consistent expectations,” refusing to let reality or context interfere with their approach towards students OR faculty.

Anyone who’s been in education for more than a few years has encountered their share of bizarre district mandates untethered by reality. I’m currently tasked with raising students who rarely if ever attend school by multiple reading levels by the years’ end – as if sheer determination and some creative lesson plans could transform a fifth grade reading level to that of the average ninth grader in even the best of circumstances. I don’t worry about it, however, because it’s inane. It’s so undoable as to be meaningless. Like my students, I may not always buy into even the legit stuff – but I’ll definitely ignore the impossible.

What’s Your Point?

I generally avoid expressing frustration with school boards or administration. (Not that I haven’t periodically vented a bit when I thought there were larger points to be made.)

We have too many common oppressors from outside the system to turn on one another, at least publicly. And besides, many of the folks working in those positions are sensible, well-intentioned professionals. Just like teachers in general, it’s unfair to demonize them based on the idiocy of a handful of their peers.

I bring up these few examples of nonsense I’ve encountered over the years to make a point many have made before and which I hope others will continue repeating as often as possible going forward: it doesn’t matter what you demand until you can demonstrate that you have some idea what you’re talking about.

This is just as true with teachers as it is with students. My expertise in a subject area may not always secure enthusiastic cooperation from teenagers, but my ignorance pretty much guarantees problems. I may have an entire arsenal of policies and expectations intended to coerce them into doing what I say, but unless I manage to build some degree of rapport, I’ll have to rely on the authority of others to handle my problems (of which there will be many).

The number one thing districts or administrators can do to secure more support and cooperation from their teachers is the same as what we’re told to do with students – build some credibility. Spend some time listening more than talking. Don’t pretend to know more than you do. Assume we can tell the difference between genuine interest in our perceptions and expertise and yet another survey about building climate or district priorities. Stop basing so many of your decisions on petty disputes with individuals or what looks best on your resume. Most of all, be genuine. You don’t have to sacrifice professional boundaries to not be full of $#!+.

Just like in the classroom, you don’t have to be perfect, but you do have to be sincere. Until you’ve built up a positive track record with all involved, job title alone is insufficient for securing buy in.

You may get token compliance, but genuine cooperation? Not so much.

Teachers aren’t always easy people to deal with, but then again, neither are students. That’s the gig. If you can’t be genuine about it, or you lack the necessary skills and knowledge to do more than fake it, maybe it’s not for you. There are many professions where you can rely on misdirection and obfuscation without doing any real damage, but this isn’t one of them. In short, whether you’re a superintendent, a department manager, a curriculum director, or a building principal, please take a moment and ask yourself what you’re really doing, and why.

Then ask the folks working “under” you how you could be doing it better. And mean it this time.

Things I Heard This Week

September 26, 2021June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I teach in a district that’s had some struggles in recent years. We’re majority-minority and 100% of my kids are “free and reduced lunch” (mostly “free”). Add in eighteen months of not having real school and the fact that most of the schools feeding into mine are already under state “control” (an ironic term by any measure), and it’s easy to grow discouraged. There aren’t always those “breakthrough” moments you count on to stay motivated – personally or academically.

All the more reason to build a few monuments to the encouraging or amusing episodes which do occur from time to time. Here are three from this past week.

Episode #1:

My 4th hour is not my largest class, but it does tend to be my most challenging. I consider myself fairly reasonable in terms of basic expectations, and yet I’ve somehow ejected more students for egregious violations during that period this year than all my other hours combined.

Two of my most challenging girls in that class are Anaiyah and Tamara. They are spirited young ladies of color and often have difficulty with impulse control (which, to be fair, is true of most freshmen). Anaiyah has a very low reading level but isn’t “slow” by any meaningful measure, while Tamara is the quintessential “so much potential if she ever chooses to use her powers for good and not evil,” dressed in more style and sass than I could manage on my best day at any age.

4th period is 15 minutes longer to accommodate multiple lunch periods. (That’s part of what makes it such a challenge.) We had some time left over one day and Anaiyah asked if she could work on her math homework, which of course was fine. A few minutes later she asked if I knew how to do one of the problems. It looked easy enough – one of those “solve for X” types that starts off as 8x – 19 = 3x + 6 or whatever and the goal is to isolate the X on one side of the equal sign.

I mean, that’s doable, right? But… it’s been a few years, and I messed it up.

That’s when Tamara came up and asked if she could use the legal pad on which I’d butchered basic algebra. She proceeded to take us both through the proper steps while presumably echoing her math teacher, all without a trace of impatience or sarcasm:

“The first thing we gotta do is get rid of one a’ them extra numbers. If we add 19 over here, we gotta add it over there too so they still equal, right? That leaves us with… (*does some figuring*) 8x = 3x + 25. That already look better, don’t it? Now we gotta figure out how to simplify the – I forget what they called – the numbers with ‘X’ in ‘em. We can do that by…”

For those of you playing along at home, x = 5 in this case. The sad thing was, I knew that from the beginning and still couldn’t remember how to get things there. But Tamara could, and did. It was an excellent two-minute lesson, and when it was through, Anaiyah was able to do the next few by herself using the same steps.

It was beautiful – not because the math was super complicated, but because the presentation was so gracious and confident. I talk a good game about what many of my kids are capable of, but it’s nice when it jumps out and kicks me in the face like that.

Episode #2:

I was walking towards the teachers’ lounge to heat up my lunch when I passed a group of girls at their lockers talking loudly. One was saying – “so she keeps grabbing my balls and I’m like, get your hands OFF my balls!”

I don’t get too worked up by vulgarity when it’s not directed at another person in anger, but I still paused – “Language, ladies – language!” – before walking on. I didn’t expect trembling or humbly begging for forgiveness, but I was slightly surprised at how they all three just kinda stopped and stared at me, confused, for a moment. Still, I only have 30 minutes for lunch, and I figured I’d done my part to shape the destinies of the young with my wisdom and guidance in that brief chiding.

Behind me, I heard the same girl pick up where she’d left off: “So then, I get THREE STRIKES IN A ROW! And I’m like, Hah! Top that!”

They were talking about bowling.

Episode #3

We don’t take our books home here (they don’t tend to ever make it back) so I have shelves in my room for kids to stack their materials. Several extend in front of the windows along that wall.

A young lady today tossed her book on the shelf a bit too carelessly and out of nowhere a large window screen fell across the back of the small bookshelf there. She jumped back and began apologizing, certain she was in trouble.

She wasn’t. She hadn’t flung her book from across the room or anything. But what really confused me – and eventually the rest of the class – is that there are no screens on the insides of my windows. They don’t open, even a little. Not that it would matter – there are no screens on the outside either.

So… where did it come from?

We kinda joked about it as a class for a moment – something it doesn’t seem we have much chance to do these days. At one point I suggested perhaps it had come from another dimension, like the squids that rain down from the sky periodically in Watchmen (an obscure reference for my kids, I know, but in my defense, none of this was planned).

One of my students suggested perhaps demons had sent the screen to us as a warning, which struck me as an amusing – if bizarre – concept. Before I had time to consider that option, another kid spoke up:

“My granddaddy’s a preacher and he says that people who go to Hell will spend eternity surrounded by the screens of the damned.”

*pause*

I laughed. Beyond that, I honestly had no idea where to go from there. The entire exchange was so far removed from what I’ve come to expect in this particular setting that I was genuinely at a loss. Fortunately, we were close enough to the end of class that we could simply let the moment ride until the bell brought us back to our new normal.

I never did figure out where the screen came from. For the record, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t demons.

RELATED POST: You Get Up

RELATED POST: I’m A Cow

Lessons From Pandemic Teaching

December 7, 2020June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

We’ll soon hit a full year of trying to figure out how public education works (or doesn’t) during a pandemic. Some of the experience gained may be specific to 2020 – the social and political dynamics of which have not been even remotely encouraging (see what I did there?). I’d respectfully suggest, however, that many of the “lessons” learned along the way apply to most forms of remote, virtual, or online “education,” whatever the surrounding climate.

I’ve numbered them in order to make my observations seem more carefully weighed and thoughtfully considered. Seriously, doesn’t even the illusion of someone having a coherent plan and consistent ideology seem insanely comforting these days?

#5: States and Some Districts Are REALLY Committed to Testing and Pointless Paperwork

One of the most crippling aspects of long-distance learning is what it does to our ability to “connect” with students, individually or en masse. The thing most of us signed on for – that idealistic, touch-lives-and-help-kids stuff – has been reduced to the point of near-extinction. What remains strong, however, is the bureaucracy and nonsense we’d mostly learned to tolerate. It’s always been annoying, but it’s traditionally been overshadowed by the meaningful bits.

Not this year.

Many districts are plowing ahead with “virtual PD” and hoping that if they simply require enough documentation of, well… everything they can think of, engagement will somehow soar and distance learning will no longer be a disaster. Kids being at home will be just like them being at school, and we can think happy thoughts and click our heels together until AYP is met!

The centerpiece of this delusion is the conviction that THE TESTING MUST GO ON. Standardized state assessments, sketchy endeavors in the best of times, have long claimed their primary function is to “assess student learning and growth.” Supposedly the resulting numbers help direct instruction; as a bonus they can be twisted like balloon animals into some sort of marker of teacher ineffectiveness as well. (Why did you not learn them harder?!)

Standardized testing has never done much to account for culture, poverty, circumstances, or anything else – but its complete disregard of reality has truly reached new heights this year. WE MUST MEASURE THE GROWTH of students who are no longer coming to school, many of whom don’t have internet, others of whom lack self-discipline, stay-at-home moms, or sufficient protein, all so we can… know what, exactly? What are we even pretending to measure right now?

It’s the most cynical sort of sophistry. We might as well have them take the tests while strapped to various amusement park rides or with Tiny Tim at dangerous volumes on infinite repeat. The validity of such “testing conditions” would be far more defensible than pushing ahead this year.

#4 Bipolar Teacher Disorder

Personally, I’ve always had a soft spot for the semi-dysfunctional, over-committed educator. Sure, they’re repeatedly taken advantage of, and they often operate out of insecurity or guilt at being unable to save every last child – but they’re so sincere and adorable while they’re doing it!

Even relatively stable, well-adjusted teachers, however, are beginning to manifest what I think of as “bipolar teacher disorder.” It’s a natural result of the pendulum of thoughts and emotions inherent in trying to reach disengaged populations long-distance. The internal dialogue often goes something like this:

“I’ve got to do more to engage and challenge these kids! They deserve a quality edu—“
“CAN THEY SERIOUSLY NOT LOG IN FOR 10 MINUTES AND AT LEAST USE THE BUILT-IN MIC?!? I FEEL LIKE A DANCING BEAR REPEATEDLY PAUSING FOR THEM TO TYPE ONE-WORD RESP—“
“My poor babies. It’s not their fault this is happening. Most would rather be here! School really is the most structure and approval they’re likely to get most days, not to mention—“
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN’T OPEN IT ON YOUR PHONE? THE SCHOOL ISSUES YOU A CHROMEBOOK! THEY’LL PICK IT UP AND FIX OR REPLACE IT FOR FREE, REPEATEDLY! I MADE 27 TRAINING VIDEOS TALKING YOU THROUGH HOW TO DO THIS! YOU WANT ME TO COME TYPE IT FOR Y—“
“My God everyone on Twitter is rocking virtual education and doing all of these cool projects and discussions and – they’re using breakout rooms? And it’s working? Yeah, I suck. I’ve failed my students when they need me most. I might as well start handing out vouchers personally…”
“YOU WANT ME TO EXPLAIN THE ASSIGNMENT TO YOU? IN AN EMAIL? WHAT AM I GOING TO SAY THAT’S NOT IN THE SLIDESHOW I POSTED, AND IN THE VIDEOS OF ME EMBEDDED IN EACH SLIDE TALKING THROUGH IT, AND IN THE EXAMPLE I DID FOR YOU TO—“

You get the idea. The ping-ponging between guilt/inadequacy and frustration/discouragement may actually produce real-life concussions.

#3 Every Teacher Is Different. Every Classroom Is Different.

This has always been true. There are strategies, lessons, and mindsets that are often far more useful or successful than others. There are things that are almost always a bad idea, no matter what the specifics. Generally speaking, however, it’s important to distinguish between “here are some things that have worked for me in such-and-such situation” and “here’s what good teachers do if they want to be effective (or at least more effective than you).”

This reality has been dramatically magnified by virtual (or blended) learning. Kudos to those of you working wonders on the small screen. Many of you had to overcome repeated struggles and frustrations to get there. That doesn’t mean those still mired in pointlessness are lazy or lack talent. It’s more likely they have different kids, different circumstances, or different strengths.

Keep sharing what’s working. Celebrate others’ successes or breakthroughs. But let’s not forget that this whole situation is stupid and not at all what we signed up for. It’s not a moral failure when we can’t make the magic happen.

#2 The “Problems” With Public Education Are Huge Advantages

We all know the litany of failures attributed to the standard 20th century public education model. Students are run through a “factory system.” There’s not enough differentiation. The rooms are too square, the schedules too rigid, and the instruction too direct. Online, self-paced, n0-walls education was supposed to free our poor, victimized children from this outdated torture.

For a handful of kids, it absolutely has. I have several students I’ve never met who are knocking this year out of the park. They love the flexibility and hate the chaos and inconvenience of in-person school. These outliers spend a few hours in the morning knocking out work and touching base with their teachers, then read or play or watch documentaries about food in other countries the rest of the afternoon. More power to them.

But most kids need that face-to-face time to flourish. You know things are bad when all the same politicians and talking heads who’ve been working diligently for years to get kids out of our rooms and in front of someone’s software eight hours a day are suddenly lamenting kids being out of our rooms and in front of the screen for eight hours a day. If we’ve learned nothing else this year, hopefully we’ve rediscovered the value of teacher interaction for actual learning to consistently occur. We’ve sorely missed proper small group discussions and kids having to learn how to deal with one another like we all live in the same world together or something.

Parents have been confronted daily with the shocking reality that their children are not naturally hungry for knowledge or motivated by where they may or may not be accepted to college in a few years. Some kids care for intrinsic reasons, and some desperately want to please their parents or compete with their friends. But many many many of our darlings learn because we woo them. We cajole them. We trick them. We engage them. We entertain them, scare them, love them, push them. It’s an art as much as it is a science. Every educator knows this.

None of us were really surprised that it’s just not the same when kids are at home working “at their own pace” and the best we can do is video in from time to time. That didn’t make it less discouraging.

#1 It’s All About Resources

In districts with lots of technology and support, the twists and turns have generally gone better than in districts without. In districts where kids already had reliable internet at home and parents with basic online communication skills (the bulk of the email goes in the BODY, not the SUBJECT LINE), etc., things have been a little easier than in districts where half the kids don’t have heat – let alone reliable wi-fi.

Sure, there are always a handful of plucky souls who overcome, and they’re absolutely worth celebrating. But there are always a handful of football players who make the NFL and a handful of musicians who win Grammys. Pointing to Patrick Mahomes or Billie Eilish as proof that “anyone willing to put out a little effort can do it” is either delusional or deceitful. Pointing to districts whose teachers and students are finding all sorts of creative ways to make it work is absolutely appropriate in terms of celebrating their success and learning from their efforts. They make poor guides for critiquing districts with whom they have little in common, however.

Your Ticket-Out-The-Blog

So, what did I leave out? What did I get wrong? More importantly, of all my wit and pith and insight, which parts made you love me the most?

Comment below and let me know what you think. If you like, you can document it and count it towards your virtual professional development.

RELATED POST: Teacher Tired

Scaffold The $#*& Out Of It

March 27, 2020June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

My students are not typical of those I’ve had in the past. I’ve had plenty of diversity in my 22+ years of public education, but it’s always been just that – diversity. My current school is not particularly diverse. Sure, there’s a mix of haggard white kids and not-particularly-prosperous Hispanic students walking the halls, but by far the greatest majority of my darlings are poor, Black, and from backgrounds the rest of us might cautiously clump together as “complicated.”

So it’s been a learning experience.

The most bracing realization was that pretty much nothing I’d ever done in class with any other group of students actually works here. That’s not an attack on them so much as a confession of my own shortcomings. I’ve been riding high on personality and pedagogy-with-a-flair for quite a few years, and finding out that I was incapable of successfully communicating, for example, the “iceberg” approach to analyzing a short story (the author uses the “ice” above the water – the details in the story – to hint at the larger realities just below the surface) was humbling.

I’d rather not even discuss the results of our efforts to recognize ethos, logos, and pathos is persuasive writing, commercials, or print ads. It was… messy.

But hey – I’ve been to teacher school. Once. A long time ago. I’ve got one of them “toolboxes” we always hear about, stuffed onto a shelf somewhere in my metaphorical pedagogical garage. This is doable, right?

Right?

The Five Paragraph Essay

For those of you new to education, there are several things you can bring up in any gathering of teachers to virtually GUARANTEE a complete and total breakdown of whatever was SUPPOSED to be happening. “So… what’s our primary goal as educators, exactly?” is a classic – both unanswerable and constantly answered poorly. “How should our honors/advanced/GT/AP classes be different than our regular/on-level/academic classes?” is another sure-fire disrupter. Oh, and I particularly enjoy overtly ethical and unavoidably emotional conundrums: “Do we really want students missing class because they’re not properly aligned with our outdated and possibly misogynistic ideas about clothing?” or “Should attendance really matter if they can demonstrate they can do the work and have mastered the skills?”

It’s good times, I assure you.

For English or Social Studies teachers (especially those frothy AP types), the Holy Hand Grenade of rapport-killers is the Five Paragraph Essay. Come out in favor, come out opposed, or simply mention it in passing, and off the rest of us will go. Only Wikipedia and Teach For America have achieved similar infamy for their ability to produce pseudo-intellectual chaos and mutual hostility, online or in the teachers’ lounge.

Honestly, you’d be better off bringing up religion, immigration, or abortion. Fewer emotions or deeply entrenched convictions in play that way.

The primary criticism of the Five Paragraph Essay is that it’s stifling. Students learn to plug-n-play to fit a format without any real conviction and little actual learning. It’s barely an evolutionary step up from fill-in-the-blank worksheets. Secondary teachers and college professors alike lament their students’ inability to break free once their minds have been trapped and corrupted by this five-part infection.

An essay should be however long it takes to say what you have to say! This “structure” practically DEMANDS bland, surface-level thinking and formulaic thesis statements! It destroys creativity and genuine thought! IT PRODUCES STUDENTS WHO ASK HOW MANY SENTENCES HAVE TO BE IN EACH PARAGRAPH!!!

Those voicing these complaints aren’t entirely wrong.

At the same time, there’s something to be said for structure. How much great rock’n’roll started with the same basic 12-bar blues? How grounded is most Occidental music in the standard 12-note chromatic scale? And while there are plenty of examples to the contrary, it’s still hard to beat the power of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-(verse)-chorus. And yet, somehow, music has managed to remain fresh and creative and meaningful and real.

Well, some of it, anyway.

If the musical example doesn’t resonate with you, there’s a comparable structure for planning a meal. Salads come first, maybe with a little bread. It’s typically green and one of two or three main varieties. The main course comes next, and ideally consists of one-quarter proteins, another quarter carbohydrates, and the remaining half some sort of vegetable. Dessert is last, and usually sweet.

Of course you can defy conventions if you wish. Have your green beans with your mousse or stir your salad into your iced tea. That sort of freedom periodically leads to brilliance and creativity, like whoever first thought to put ham or buffalo chicken on salad. Yum!

Generally, however – especially when you’re new to the process – there’s strength and security in following established wisdom.

I’ve previously compared writing with structure to making brownies from a box. It’s absurd for anyone with actual baking skills, but for someone at my amateurish level, those pre-measured ingredients and carefully diagrammed steps are a lifesaver. So are the instructions about how to put together my new desk or “how-to” guides for replacing the trim in your house. Even John Coltrane and Miles Davis mastered their scales before leaving the planet with their own ideas about what jazz could be.

And it seems I’ve come full circle back to the music metaphor. So be it.

I get that there are problems with the Five Paragraph Essay. For example, it’s unlikely most of my students will ever be called on to open with an attention-grabber, introduce what they’re going to say and how they’ll support it, elaborate on each of those points, then restate everything by way of conclusion. The so-called “real world” will rarely expect them to write this way and, unless you’re an old-school preacher, most of us don’t talk that way – and couldn’t, even if we wanted to.

On the other hand, at some point in their lives, assuming a modicum of personal or professional success, it IS likely they’ll be expected to explain a process, persuade a small group, or advocate for themselves or someone in their care. It may be formal, as part of a business presentation, or informal, standing at a customer service counter, or perhaps sitting across the desk from their child’s teacher or principal. It may be part of their effort to get a loan, defend themselves against a traffic ticket, or make a case at a community meeting for some policy or another.

While expressing themselves like a Five Paragraph Essay may not be the most effective approach, neither is their current default of “Tsst! Are you %&@4ing STUPID?!” The hope, then, is that by working on overall clarity and the necessity of supporting any argument with clear, rational thought, they’ll be better able to transfer this general skill to situations beyond the classroom.

Hey, we can dream, can’t we?

That is, in any case, the current reality in which I teach – or did before the Covid-19 beast descended. (I can’t wait for Easter when everything will be magically cured by saving the stock market.) As recently as a month or so ago, however, we were still just having school and trying to pry open their little minds and cram in some learnin’.

I don’t belong to a particularly organized English department. There’s no time built into the weekly (or yearly) schedule for collaboration or team-building or whatever, and as of March I don’t actually know the names of everyone who teaches the same subject I do. Meetings are infrequent and informal (although there were snacks last time), and most of the teachers I actually talk to regularly are a door or two in either direction in my hallway.

A few days ago, as I was passing by between classes, I casually asked a colleague how things were going. She was unexpectedly peppy in response.

“Great! We finally got through five paragraph essays!”

“That’s awesome. Were they any good?”

“Well… they weren’t all terrible, and that’s saying something.”

“I haven’t even come back to writing yet this semester. What’s your secret?”

“Secret? Ha – no secret. We just scaffold the $#*% out of it!”

Twenty years ago, I would have been intimidated by the terminology (the “scaffold,” not the “$#*&%”). I was getting by on enthusiasm and self-delusion and if I’d slowed down to think about anything too clearly, I’d have been Wile E. Coyote just after running off the cliff – he didn’t plummet until he looked down.

Ten years ago, I would have understood it, but been a bit dismissive. I had different kids then, and while I’d dramatically improved my grasp of pedagogy and child development, my students generally arrived with enough basic skills that my primary challenge was to engage and motivate so we could push towards greatness, not rehash the basics of playing school.

I genuinely love my little darlings this year, some because I choose to and others because I just can’t help it once I get to know them. Winning them over is still part of the equation – not for my benefit, but because it’s the only way most of them are likely to learn anything “academic” while in my care. I’ve learned not to make any assumptions about what they already know or what they can do – not because they’re “stupid” (they’re not), but because they’re such an unpredictable mix of ignorance and ability. They can definitely learn. They can even learn to enjoy learning. Their tolerance for challenge is low, however, and their frustration palpable at the slightest speedbump.

I can lament the loss of rose-colored “good ol’ days,” or I can put on my big-teacher panties and adjust based on the students in front of me and what they need if they’re to have any chance of moving forward. It just requires a different approach – one I’m finally mastering after 20+ years in the classroom.

We scaffold the $#*& out of it.

RELATED POST: In Defense of the 5-Paragraph Essay

RELATED POST: Freedom of Choice

RELATED POST: It’s A Structural Thing

Lies We Tell Our Students

October 17, 2018June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

I don’t like to lie to my students. I try not to, but it’s not always easy. Sometimes it’s literally required by the folks signing my paycheck, creating what we in the teaching business call “a dilemma.”

My ex-wife and I never told our kids there was a Santa, a Tooth Fairy, or an Easter Bunny, even when they were very little. We tried to make holidays fun, of course, and we played all sorts of pretend games and did traditional things – we weren’t uptight. It just seemed wrong to demonstrate to them early on that we were willing to fabricate stories about invisible beings which they were expected to later outgrow, for no better reason than our own amusement.

Euthanized animals weren’t playing on someone’s farm, pre-teens didn’t always win at games they sucked at, and not everyone is special in their own way. We tried to balance this with some grace and humility – it wasn’t their job to puncture the illusions of their young peers – but we didn’t figure familial festivities required lies and delusion.

(I’m not criticizing those of you who choose to betray your child’s trust repeatedly, by the way – that was just our personal choice. We wanted the truth – whether it be uncomfortable, encouraging, unwelcome, or warm – to mean something. We were odd that way.)

I feel the same way with my kids today – the ones I’m paid to deal with. It doesn’t automatically make me a great teacher, but at the very least I’d prefer not to contribute more than absolutely necessary to the existing cynicism and distrust of “the system” and everything for which we claim to stand.

Here are a few of the most egregious lies we tell kids repeatedly, then wonder why they don’t take us at our word when it’s really important. I’m curious what you’d add to the list – so please, comment below.

Lie #1: You can be anything you want to be if you really set your mind to it.

This may be true for a handful of them, but for most it’s balderdash. That doesn’t mean they’re all doomed – that’s a false dichotomy – but the power of personal choices and the glory of risk needn’t be yoked to self-delusion.

I’m an overweight public school teacher with a blog and a modicum of notoriety. I’d like to write a book eventually. That’s unlikely, but certainly possible with some commitment and a few sacrifices. I’ve considered going back to school for a master’s, which would be tricky in terms of logistics, but if it’s truly important to me, it’s conceivable. I could pick up the guitar again, do more with “Have To” History, or lose 30 pounds if I make good choices and refuse to give up – yay motivation and living one’s dreams.

But my NHL ambitions are simply not in the cards at this point. Disney movies aside, I’m not going to be picked up by the Stars or Blue Jackets this season. Or next. I’m not going to make a living writing. People do, but I can’t. And no matter how much I wish I’d used my twenties more ambitiously, I’m never going to be young and suave and hang with the cool kids ever, ever, ever. Even trying would be creepy and sad.

Lie #2: Appearance doesn’t matter – it’s only what’s inside that counts.

Appearance doesn’t’ matter? Seriously? Are you new?

Of course appearance matters. Maybe it shouldn’t – I suspect that’s what we usually mean, if we mean anything at all – but it absolutely does. Worse, we all know this when we say it.

Why did you choose semi-professional attire today? Why do we have dress codes for our students, however silly or loosely interpreted they may be? Why do girls wash their hair from time to time and boys don’t want to have zits?

Do you honestly believe that girl in your 3rd hour, the one who’s just… large, and homely, and objectively not that easy to look at, will throughout her education get the same attention, respect, opportunities, or breaks as those in ‘average’ range or above? It’s a sliding scale, of course, and all sorts of subjective, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

It is arguably petty – perhaps even offensive – to openly speak of such things, but claiming you can’t tell or don’t notice which young men are handsome or which young ladies are genuinely cute is like insisting you “don’t see color.” Nonsense.

It’s not just personal appearance. Good handwriting or proper formatting of a document makes student work look ‘smarter’ before we’ve actually read any of it. Projects that are turned in looking intentional and demonstrating a little aesthetic awareness grab our eye very differently from those haphazardly taped together or only recently freed from the bottom of someone’s backpack.

None of this excuses our conscious promotion of appearance over substance. God forbid we judge students based on potential professional attractiveness or grade their papers based primarily on their font and margins. But that’s a decision, based on ethics – it’s not how the world naturally works. They all know this. Denying it simply undercuts our credibility in other areas.

What we can respectfully suggest to them when the opportunity arises is that while appearance matters – sometimes greatly, and especially at first – it’s the underlying qualities and less obvious elements of people, of writing, of art, of work, that almost always matter most over time. Looking good, in other words, will only get you so far, whether we’re talking hair gel and pencil skirts or that fancy paper you used to print out your essay.

Lie #3: This {insert stupid required school thing, probably state-mandated, always done in the most annoying, time-consuming way possible} is very important for all these reasons we’re about to give.

There are times we have to do stupid stuff. The more pointless and unnecessarily contorted it is, the more likely it is to have been mandated by the state. Let’s just acknowledge that and move on, shall we?

We’re supposed to be preparing them for some sort of “real life” down the road, aren’t we? Sometimes life means jumping through hoops or enduring bureaucracy with patience and grace. Heck, sometimes it means sucking it up and doing stupid stuff to get what you want on the other side.

Can we not just own that and admit to our kids when some of the system is unnecessarily inane? Being cooperative shouldn’t require being dishonest. If there are reasons to do it anyway, let’s share the reasons.

For that matter, I prefer to admit it to my kids if an activity or lesson doesn’t pan out the way I’d hoped. Assuming I don’t recklessly waste their time on a daily basis, they don’t seem too shocked or turn on me violently when I share that, well… here was my goal for that and what I was hoping we’d end up understanding or being able to do, but I’m not sure it turned out that way. Maybe next time I’ll do it this other way, etc.

That’s not something I’d add to the teacher evaluation system or anything, just my personal style – like not lying to my children about magical invisible gluttons or pretending animals are immortal. I’m just quirky like that.

Of course, sometimes we don’t know why we’re doing the stuff we’re doing. Sometimes it’s not the state – it’s us. If I can’t easily and succinctly explain the purpose or value of something I’m asking a teenager to do, then perhaps we shouldn’t have to do it. That’s also about honesty – maybe with ourselves as much as them.

Alright – I’m sure I’m missing some biggies. What are the most egregious lies we tell our kids, in your opinion? And why do we tell them? I look forward to your comments below.

RELATED POST: The Rainfall Follows The Plow

RELATED POST: Dear Frustrated Student…

Tearing It Up

August 31, 2018June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

We’re exactly two weeks into the new school year, and things in AP World and AP U.S. History have started off about as well as one might expect, given the many interruptions and the wide variety of skill levels and content-knowledge gathered together in each section.

They may be talented teenagers, but they’re still, you know… teenagers.

Last year was a bit rocky at times, and it was important to me that this year start strong. I’m not claiming anything particularly magical has occurred, but so far it’s been a decent balance of high expectations and just enough compassion for those finding the learning curve a bit steeper than they’re used to. Overall, though, I’ve been damn near legit. (I’ll even go out on a limb and say that, as a general rule, feeling like you more or less know what you’re doing is quite a bit more enjoyable than feeling like you’re in over your head and are probably ruining the future in a dramatic, easily-traceable-to-you fashion.)

And then it happened.

I was being all pedagogical, sitting in my classroom at the end of the day and pondering options for the morrow, when the most ridiculous, artsy-fartsy revelation popped into my head.

We should do tear art!

For those of you unfamiliar with the idea, tear art involves stacks of variously-colored construction paper and plenty of cheap glue sticks. Students are given a time period or range of topics, and – without revealing their choices to anyone around them – use their little hearts, minds, and hands to tear out shapes and glue them onto a base page, or to one another.

No scissors allowed. No rulers. No compasses, staples, astrolabes – not even a hole punch. And no numerals or letters – you cannot write on your tear art with any form of pen, pencil, or marker, nor can you tear the paper into alphanumeric figures. It’s shapes and colors and glue, baby – working together to convey knowledge, insight, and understanding.

It’s great for certain age groups or types of students. It lends itself well to topics involving social movements, artistic expressions, strong emotions, or other intangibles best represented impressionistically. (One of my girls asked me suspiciously today where I’d come up with the idea, eventually sharing that her mom used it with her in-patients at a local “psych ward” – which I’m pretty sure is teenager code for some sort of mental health care facility for young people in the area.)

But for reviewing initial European contact with Amerindians or the various approaches of the Spanish, French, and English towards colonization?

Not so much, surely.

I toyed with the idea a bit, and repeatedly discarded it. We weren’t at a logical point for breaking our serious, focused, AP-momentum just yet. The strengths of the activity didn’t really fit this type of content. And, while I prefer not to admit it, I’m to some extent still trying to prove myself in some way I can’t quite put my finger on – a sensation no doubt rooted in my own needs and dysfunctions rather than anything external.

So, no – not tear art. Not now. Not here.

But it just kept coming back to mind.

I eventually made the mistake of checking my supply closet and had plenty of construction paper – although I have no recollection as to why. (I haven’t done the activity in years.) I’d need a few more glue sticks, but those are cheap and Wal-Mart still has all their school supplies on—

NO! LOOK, SELF… you’ve already put together the close reading thing with those colonial documents and that “City on a Hill” excerpts, and they’re just starting to get the hang of primary sources. Save the artsy-fartsy for, I don’t know… some other time. Some time it makes more sense.

Not that playing with colored paper and glue really fits anywhere in the AP curriculum, but still…

*sigh*

As an over-thinker, the dilemma quickly evolved. Soon it was no longer about sticking to the orthodox stuff vs. trying the artsy-fartsy – it became, in my mind, about whether or not I was going to follow my gut and do something that might look stupid (hell, it might be stupid), or go with the perfectly good alternative lesson plan that was entirely justifiable and appropriate for the theoretical confines of the course and wouldn’t look severely weird if someone were to drop in for a visit in the middle of things.

It became about whether or not I was going to take a risk based on twenty years of trying weird crap that sometimes turns out to be brilliant, sometimes turns out to be *SHRUG*, and sometimes completely wastes 72 minutes of our collective lives that can never be recovered or redeemed. It became about whether or not I was willing to fail this early in the year, practically on purpose, when it was so very important to me not to – at least not now. Not this soon. Not after last year.

It sounds far more noble writing about it after the fact – like my face at some point transformed into a beacon of resolve and understanding, my hair blowing majestically as I gaze up and to the right of the camera, smirking heroically until we cut to commercial. There was still a very real chance that the whole idea was still going to be stupid and would not only waste an entire class period but undercut some of the momentum and credibility I’d started to build with this group. That’s not even taking into account how common it is for peers or evaluating administrators to drop in this time of year to observe. (What’s the code on the rubric for “looks like it’s all going to pedagogical hell in a badly torn-and-glued basket”?)

We did the tear art. It wasn’t a disaster. I mean, it was a bit messy, but that was to be expected. And I hadn’t covered ‘glue etiquette’ in my syllabus.

But most students enjoyed it. The traditionally excellent were pushed a bit out of their comfort zone, but they managed (no surprise there). The majority seemed to find it cathartic. The ones who committed themselves to it actually learned a few things, as did those who remained attentive as each class member in turn held up their final product and the rest of the class guessed what it represented.

So it wasn’t an utter embarrassment. That’s good.

But was it a great use of time? I’m not sure. I think so, but I couldn’t back it up with data or anything. Based on informal feedback, a number of them reworked and rethought the material, making it stickier and more meaningful. Others, not so much.

But even if the only accomplishment was that it was kinda fun while still reinforcing content, I’m comfortable with that in moderation. So many things impact how well students will work for you, learn for you, most of them completely out of our control. Maybe it was a release, or a rapport-builder, or some other intangible that will make tomorrow (when we get to those primary sources I’m so genuinely excited about) more effective, more meaningful. Maybe it helped pull back the rubber band of learning before snapping the arm of ignorance.

Or maybe we just played with glue for an hour in the name of college-level history. I’m still not 100% certain.

So this is not a heroic story, let alone a promo for tear art. What it is, I think, is my small effort to confirm whatever it is your gut is telling you. It’s very unlikely I’ll do anything truly crazy – I’m not against shattering paradigms, but that’s just not me. I believe very much in balancing what I think sounds “interesting” with what’s fundamentally sound – useful, professional, appropriate. I started my career twenty years ago relying almost exclusively on energetic good intentions and a modicum of wit; I like to think that over time I’ve learned some of the science of the gig, and that I go to that proverbial “tool box” before leaping once again off the cliff after that demented muse who for some reason still taunts me from time to time.

But I hope my need to play it safe, or my desire to maintain credibility with peers or others, never completely overrides the recklessness of that first decade or so, or those random moments of “what if?” More than that, I hope you, my Eleven Faithful Followers, will take a moment to ponder whatever it was that convinced you to educate the spawn of others for a living (already a crazy concept). Whatever it was that you envisioned or tried or did before “reality” set in, or test results were posted, or your peers got that look on their faces, I hope you’ll consider trying it again, or chasing that weird new idea you had over the summer, or nailing down that stupid “we should really” you and that one colleague keep kicking around.

It might be stupid, but it might be brilliant. It might fall somewhere in between. But you’ll pick up such colorful scraps, and may even find yourself smirking a bit as you scrub the glue off your podium.

RELATED POST: Teach Like You

RELATED POST: The Sticker Revolution

The Mesopotamians & Jumping the Classroom Shark

August 8, 2018June 23, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Some of you are familiar with this 2007 release from They Might Be Giants:

Pop culture connections are a blessing and a curse in the high school history classroom. On the one hand, YAY ANYTHING THAT REINFORCES CONTENT IN UNEXPECTED WAYS! – even if it’s strange, inaccurate, and fictional {I’m looking at you, Hollywood}. On the other, it’s difficult to anticipate when such things have jumped the shark in relation to teen culture. Just to keep things really frustrating, some of the most promising and engaging sources are so far from school-appropriate that no amount of editing will make them OK, no matter how much I want to use them anyway.

But I don’t. Because… employment.

{In case you’re not strong on making inferences based on close reading and context, neither of these are particularly appropriate videos, language-wise.}

So we’re left looking for clean-but-engaging – a fragile field, to be sure.

Think of those school assemblies where administrators wear their caps backwards and rap about school policy. There are elementary students who will forever find this the coolest thing in all of academia, but not enough mental bleach to redeem participating “authority figures” in the eyes of those same kids five years later. You see it happen with stuff that’s pretty impressive in its own right – like Flocabulary or those cool History Teachers songs. I know others who’ve experienced this in relation to Crash Course or Hip Hughes History, although I still find both of them valuable resources. It’s just hard to anticipate with a given group.

There was a painful video several years ago of a public school teacher doing parody math songs karaoke in class. I won’t link to it here because I appreciate the risk involved – the leap of shameless faith she decided to take in hopes she could break through the expected drudgery and have a real impact out of the proverbial gate. But it was, well… it was awful. The worst sort of painful. Better she read the syllabus to them until the room lost collective consciousness.

That’s what I worry about with stuff like The Mesopotamians. I love the band, and the track, and I don’t want it to be party to anything cringe-worthy – or even something tired. Most of my students, strangely, have heard it before. Last year when we started covering Hammurabi, a number of them asked if we could watch it. {Standard answer: of course you can. I’m sure it’s on YouTube and any number of other websites. I hope you enjoy it – just don’t do so during class.} But when I changed my mind the next hour and started with it as an introduction, there were sighs and eye-rolling.

So go figure.

Add pop songs and zany videos to the list of things that can be brilliant with one group and suddenly mean nothing to another. It’s another reason the whole teaching thing is as much art and guesswork and gut-level improv as it is a craft or a science. It’s another reason that online education or computerized learning may have a role to play in public education, but like symphonies composed by algorithms or those confession booths in THX-1138, there are limits to what they can do.

Seriously, where are they hoping to find all of these kids who will stay focused and self-motivated if only the software can adjust to their reading levels and multiple choice responses quickly enough?

But I digress.

I don’t know if I’m going to show the video again this year, but I am going to reference it as an anchor for the unit. The four individuals referenced in the song lived in different times and different civilizations united only by their geography and pre-classical status. One of them (Gilgamesh) is most likely entirely fictional. But they matter both for who they were (or were supposed to be) and what they represent in the larger story. My hope is that by using the song and video as a starting point, I’ll give my students a non-threatening frame-of-reference to help them slog through the substance.

We’ll see.

Several years ago I began a rather ambitious project I called “Have To” History, the goal being to produce 2-3 page summaries of essential people or events in history for students who don’t actually care but are expected to know stuff about them. There are, of course, already numerous reference sites online, but there are countless blogs as well and that certainly hasn’t stopped anyone from adding one more. I’m hoping the focus and format make them useful for certain sorts of students (or teachers). At my current rate, I should have at least two dozen posted and available for download by 2089 or so.

In any case, I’ve recently revised and (hopefully) improved the four H2H installments drawn from The Mesopotamians. My current plan for class is to do some sort of jigsaw activity with them, although we’ll see once I’ve actually met this year’s kids. We’ll do something with them, most likely. They’re attached to this post on the off chance anyone else teaching Ancient World History or AP World (which includes ancient civilizations for one more school year before the curriculum shifts) might find them useful. Let me know.

RELATED POST: Chasing Justinian & Theodora

RELATED POST: Sargon & Eve

RELATED POST: The Sticker Revolution

Do I Really Look Like A Guy With A Plan?

August 3, 2018June 12, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring… Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:13-16, English Standard Version)

I know, right? Not that I’m in any real danger of over-planning. It’s all I can do to keep track of today, let alone regiment tomorrow.

But I’m trying. At least in regards to the upcoming school year. I’ve been reading over standards, reviewing content, organizing visuals, bookmarking relevant articles or videos. Heck, I’ve even set up a calendar week on the new district student-learning-eduganza-management system, so that I know what we’re doing in class the first three or four days.

Possibly.

It’s always been hard for me to plan very far ahead – even when I’d been teaching the same thing for a number of years. The start of a new year is especially tricky, because, well…

I haven’t met the kids yet.

“Action has meaning only in relationship, and without understanding relationship, action on any level will only breed conflict. The understanding of relationship is infinitely more important than the search for any plan of action.” (Jiddu Krishnamurti, Philosopher & Speaker)

OK, I’ve met some of them. I had a few last year. It’s been a loooong time since I’ve had kids two years in a row (for different classes, not as retreads). Some of them will be happy to see me again, and I them. Others, not so much.

But I don’t know the class dynamics yet. I don’t have a “feel” for them yet. And that’s limiting in terms of just how ambitious I can be in preparing to beat the learnin’ into them.

It doesn’t help that last year didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. I moved to a new district in a new state to teach a new subject in a whole new reality stream. I love the new district, and the kids, and even the town. If only I’d not, you know… sucked so badly.

OK, that’s not fair – I didn’t suck most days. What I did was spend far too much of the year trying to prove myself to a fictional audience (one deeply wedged in my subconscious and snacking on popcorn and emotional baggage, no doubt) before adjusting to the real kids in front of me – who weren’t ready for where I wanted to take them, and who didn’t trust me enough to go for it anyway. Once uncertainty and insecurity set in, well… it was a rocky start.

We finally reached a sort of groove, although in retrospect it, too, was distorted by dirty grace – a lenience built on guilt, like a divorced parent trying to “make up” to the 12-year old what he or she was unable to fix with their ex. I started off asking too much without figuring out where they were and finished by asking too little in an effort to offset whatever damage I thought I’d done.

All of which assumes I had much more control over the situation and the players than any of us really do.

“A deliberate plan is not always necessary for the highest art; it emerges.” (Paul Johnson, Historian & Author)

So perhaps “planning” isn’t the right word at all, so much as “preparing” – I hope to be better prepared this year. To have more options loaded and ready, to be more familiar with more content (which is essential if we’re going to be at all creative; “how” grows out of “what” and “why”), and to anticipate some of the time-intensive things I know I’d like to try, but wasn’t logistically able to construct before.

Most good teachers will tell you that it can take several years for your best lessons to evolve. Even then, that activity that totally churned the knowing and doing and growing for years in a row can suddenly just… not work anymore. Kids change. Different years are, well… different. Time to rework, rethink, re-valuate. You can’t always know ahead of time.

Still, you can prepare. We can prep ourselves, our ideas, our goals. We can prep the salads and the sauces and the skillets and the other chef-ish metaphor stuff I can’t quite pull together as I type – probably because I didn’t prepare to use them. (See what I did there?)

But you know what we can’t do – at least not consistently or effectively? We can’t plan it all, not really. Not honestly. Not effectively. Some of you can reach much further than I in your logistical outlines and have a much better idea what to expect based on your history in the district or with kids you’ve seen before. Nothing wrong with that. But the vast majority of us aren’t nailing down specifics until we’re in it – talking to the kids, watching them interact, asking them questions and otherwise pushing them as best we can.

Even when we’re in the middle of it, I’m not sure intuition and guesswork don’t play just a big of a role as knowledge and preparation. We can work mighty hard and it still seem like some of the best moments are a function of weird luck as much as anything.

Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to work – preparation creating the luck, and all that. I’d like to think we play some role in the mess. I’m positive that my kids do. Individually, and in how they react to and interact with one another. And events around them. And the weather. And the time of day. And their worlds. And their wiring. And the divine spark of random free will that keeps everything interesting and so damned difficult.

That’s not even taking into account their other teachers, other classes, and innumerable intangibles. You just never know what’s going to happen.

“In the planning stage of a book, don’t plan the ending. It has to be earned by all that will go before it.” (Rose Tremain, Author)

This, of course, drives ed-reformers and edu-financiers absolutely nuts. Folks accustomed to agenda-creation and content outlines and footnoted studies demand (but don’t really expect) better from those of us at the bottom of the pedagogical food chain. In their defense, many of them come from worlds awash in status, money, or influence (or some combination of the three). They are often accustomed to decreeing how things should go while others make it thus – or they’re at least surrounded by people good at pretending.

In my tiny little job, if things don’t go the way I’d hoped and planned, I usually know right away, and it’s immediately my problem and my scramble to adjust. As Peter Greene of Curmudgucation has pointed out, poor (or lazy) teaching brings on its own worst consequences – bored or antagonized teenagers, in your room, making you pay all day, every day.

Teachers are held accountable for innumerable things over which we have no control to begin with; we’re certainly not escaping the fallout of our own plans gone awry. It keeps you honest, I’ll tell you that.

I’m all for respecting expertise and I’m a big fan of having lots of money, but our culture too easily validates the pronouncements and preferences of power and prestige. Being rich doesn’t make you smart about everything – at best, it makes you smart about getting rich (although even that is often a function of circumstances or inheritance). And at the risk of sounding defiant or defensive, I’d even argue that being an “expert” in the field of education doesn’t mean you know anything about my kids or my content, let alone my classroom. You want authority? Tell me about your world and your experiences – your studies, your observations, your suggestions. I can adapt what’s useful for mine from there.

I have plenty to learn, even after twenty years. But any presentation, any training, any report, that opens with some variation of “stop ruining the future and behold my revelation of this season’s edicts” can pretty much kiss my aspirational posters.

If I were a nurturing, supportive type, I’d encourage you as the new school year ascends to prepare more than plan. Hold yourself to a much higher standard than is required by the paycheck or the system, absolutely – but cut yourself some slack when it comes to implementation and juggling the impossible and the unknown.

There will be real live little people in front of you soon, and they don’t need a better study or a more determined philanthropist – they need you to figure them out and to love them and to be stubbornly flexible on their behalf. Read the research and watch the TED Talks and follow the blogs, but own your gig and your obligations. We can demand far more of ourselves and of our little darlings without letting someone with a fancier title or a government study dictate exactly what that looks like in our reality with our kids.

No one knows better than you what’s best for your kids this coming year – a truth as terrifying as it is freeing. Anyone who claims otherwise is “boasting in arrogance.”

They’re coming. Let’s get prepared.

RELATED POST: The Sticker Revolution

RELATED POST: Ms. Bullen’s Data-Rich Year

RELATED POST: Am I Teaching To The Test?

The Problem With Linear Reality (You Can’t Go Back)

April 29, 2018June 23, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’… into the future.
Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’… into the future.

One of the sobering things about edu-bloggery – or social media in general – is how hard it can be to keep up when your tangible, so-called “real” world gets crazy. Far more humbling, though, is that when you DO fall away for a time (slowly, and then all at once), the entire apparatus and most of those involved keep right on going just fine.

Which is rude.

It would be ridiculous, of course, to expect any less. And despite my substantial ego, that’s not actually the difficult part. You see, I miss it. The writing and the editing, the labor and the self-loathing. I miss the reworking, the doubting, the publishing, and the connecting.

There were times I’d knock out several posts a week and discover that thousands of you were reading and sharing them. Other times I’d labor for days over such pith and profundity that I doubted there were words or emotions left in the universe for others to use… and manage a good three or four dozen views. Sometimes the most amazing conversations would start in the comments; other times it was that same bit of misspelled spam from some college essay writing service in Russia.

The numbers weren’t really the point, though. It was the process. The struggle. The recurring leap.

It helped me reflect, and to clarify thoughts and emotions. It brought me into contact with some of the most AMAZING people. It forced growth, and – if I’m being honest – it far too often left me snickering endlessly over some clever phrase or another which I’d somehow managed to wring out.

And then real life asserted itself.

I took a new position this school year, in a state far, far away, teaching something I’ve not actually taught before. I love our new home, and the area, and my co-workers, and my kids. I’m glad we made the move – especially given the new lows to which the Oklahoma Legislature is attempting to sink.

That being said, this year has completely kicked my ass. It’s mocked me and broken me and shamed me and frustrated me, leaving me without cab fare and not calling for weeks at a time. I scribbled about this previously, but in retrospect, I think I dialed back the intensity a bit in an effort to maintain my own little ‘growth mindset.’ And while I don’t mind ranting, I prefer to provide you, my Eleven Faithful Followers, with the sort of witty, contrary-but-inspirational Blue magic you and I have both come to adore.

Now that the annual reboot looms, however, I confess that the learning curve of a new subject was much more intense than I anticipated. My pedagogy and strategies and years of experience seemed suddenly seemed rather… shallow – perhaps even fraudulent – like I’d been skating by on audacity and circumstance and confusing it for talent. Above all, my inability to more quickly figure out my kids and adjust to what they REALLY needed and where they were was simply…

Well, it was unforgiveable.

“Don’t beat yourself up, Blue – you did the best you could. You probably made more of a positive difference than you realized some days.”

Yeah, I probably did. But that doesn’t make it OK. They needed more. They needed better. I absolutely must go back and redo this year – to fix some of it, and try better things.

But that’s the problem with linear reality – we can only learn forward. We can only change in one direction, and even those efforts are based on limited, often flawed perceptions and information.

There are those who insist that if they COULD go back and change anything about their lives, they wouldn’t do it – because those experiences are what made them who they are today.

Pshaw.

Nonsense.

Hockey of the horse.

I’d go back in a heartbeat, several times if necessary, and I’d change so very many things, over and over until I figured out what might work – how much more I could accomplish; how much less damage I could do.

But no.

Time is marching on. And time… is still marching on.
You’re older than you’ve ever been, and now you’re even older. And now you’re even older. And now you’re even older. And now you’re older still.

It’s the time of year that kids start coming to me for “make-up work,” wanting to know what they can still turn in. Whatever my past failings, I do sometimes learn, and two decades have taught me that it’s generally pointless to give students a pile of old assignments to complete NOW – out of context, and in bulk. That’s not really how learning works.

“Here’s that Quarter Pounder with no pickle you asked for three weeks ago” isn’t exactly a life skill, but then again neither is “sorry you fail there’s no hope for you now guess you shoulda done it when you had the chance cackle cackle.” One alternative I’ve come to like, depending on the student and the surrounding circumstances, is to suggest that rather than get bogged down in what they should have been doing two weeks ago, they focus this sudden burst of concern into THIS week’s work, THIS week’s discussions, THIS week’s activities. Give me one good week (sometimes two), at least 80% of your energy each day, mostly keeping up with whatever we’re doing now, and if that happens, well…

Maybe one or two of those old zeroes can go away. Maybe the next quiz can count double – as itself, and in place of that last quiz you bombed. That sort of thing.

It shouldn’t be easy, of course. Straying from the course comes at a cost, especially when it’s a result of willfully poor choices. But it should be possible – at least in most situations. I mean, I don’t know how your gig works, but I don’t get paid any extra for assuring kids in March that they’re mathematically doomed and they should appreciate what a valuable long-term life lesson this is as they come to class for no possible reason the rest of the year.

In case you’re worried, I don’t think we do them any favors when we go to the other extreme and shield them completely from their own irresponsibility, either. It’s an imperfect balance, and there’s no “rule” to it that fits all situations or all types of kids.

Nothing we do is that simple. Ever. Which is exhausting.

You failed – you sunk like Jonah to the whale. Big mouths follow behind you; still small voice swallowed up by you
You failed – you picked the right time to fail – got your past behind you; got your future in front of you
You can’t go back. You can’t go back. You can’t go back.
You can go on…

I have several students who are starting to nail down college plans – where to go, whether or not to swim for this school or keep doing drama at that university. Even those with several good options struggle, partly because they’re starting to realize a rather painful lesson of semi-adulthood:

For ever choice you make, every path to which you commit, there are multiple other options you aren’t taking. You can sometimes change, but for the most part, you’ll never really know for sure what those other paths would look like – you can’t save the game and replay this level later using a different strategy. It’s forward… always.

Nor are there always “right” and “wrong” choices. Sometimes all of your options are bad, but you must nevertheless commit one way or the other. Sometimes a half-dozen different roads look fine, but you can only take one at a time and at best see through the grass darkly what lies along each.

We just have to learn to be OK with this, and to make the best call we can, then WALK BOLDLY AND WITHOUT LOOKING BACK (unless it’s to learn a bit from what’s back there without getting mired down, of course).

Sometimes you screw up. Sometimes you just don’t know better. And sometimes you do the wrong thing even when you knew it was a bad idea. Whatever the reason, the options are all forward. In that sense, they’re all in one basic direction.

So it’s almost summer. Some things will change dramatically soon, others will just keep plodding along. Maybe it was a good year for you; maybe you can’t wait for this one to end. Maybe you did amazing things, or maybe you just can’t believe how few things actually worked out the way you’d hoped. Could be it’s time for a change – but is it a change of paths, or of attitudes and mindsets along your path? Do you need to take a deeper look at your own stuff, or cut yourself a little more slack and realize you’re working miracles with what you’ve been given?

Hell, maybe it’s all of the above, and more, all tangled up at once. It happens.

But forward we go, my beloveds. Forward.

Actual Reflections (and too many questions)

January 9, 2018June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

My school is on trimesters, so coming back wasn’t a new start so much as picking up where we left off. Still, having two weeks to regroup and get a jump on some of the planning for this month was, well… it may have saved my life. At least emotionally.

Whatever the formatting of the –mesters, it’s a new year, calendrically-speaking. Last time I set out to reflect it ended up being a bit of a socio-political meltdown, so I set it all aside for a week of James Bond, Stars hockey, Who’s Line marathons, and Redd’s Blueberry Ale.

It was nice.

Now it’s time to put the big teacher panties on and get back to work. I’m in a new state, a new school, teaching a new subject in a very different environment than before, and while I love it here, and I’m surrounded by amazing people, the learning curve…

I mean, damn. I hate learning curves when they’re mine.

But that’s OK. It’s not like I’m a complete neophyte. I’ve taught a variety of subject to a weird range of students over the years – sometimes in less-than-ideal circumstances – and done fairly well. This is not a profession in which one’s primary concern is boredom.

Besides, actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. I went from VERY successful retail manager, to a daily Classroom inspiration and highly Respected education consultant…..

….to Major Social Media presence and THE Blue Cereal Education (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius….and a very stable genius at that!

It’s in that most stablest and geniussy context that I’ll confess up front that I have more questions than answers. I realize how trite that sounds, and I’d rather dazzle you with catchy memes about open-ended inquiry being foundational to all wisdom, but… honestly? There are times I’d much rather have clear, simple solutions. Like now.

How Important Is It For Students To Like Their Teachers?

I’m not even sure this is the right question, or at least not the whole question. The issue is in any case more complicated than it sounds.

How important is it for students to trust their teachers? To respect their teachers? To believe that their teacher likes and/or respects them?

I’ll tell you this – things are much easier when students like and trust you. A helluva lot more fun, too. Kids who don’t love the content sometimes play along for the rapport. Kids frustrated with your expectations might complain, but generally go where you lead if they believe you’re looking out for them – AND that you know what you’re doing. “Mark my footsteps, my good page – tread thou in them boldly. Thou shalt find each history page will freeze thy blood less coldly…”

You can write about self-directed learning all you like, and I’m not arguing with how neato that must be – but I don’t meet many of these intrinsically-driven, hungry-for-struggle children. I have to woo and cajole and model and demand in impossible combinations for most progress to occur. It’s exhausting some days.

But there are those light bulb moments when kids who’ve been treading along with you solely because they’re pretty sure if they show effort you won’t fail them although you’re obviously insane and maybe some kids can do this but there’s no way they’ll ever—

Wait. This… did I just… you mean it…? OH MY GOD WE SEE IT NOW! THE KNOWLEDGE ENDORPHINS ARE MY NEW HOLY PLACE!!! WE ARE THINKY-MAN AND MAD HISTORY SKILLZ GURL!

You Were Saying, About Liking and Trusting…?

I love my kids by choice, but I also genuinely like most of them this year. (That doesn’t always happen, no matter what fluff-and-donuts you see on Twitter.) I’m also sure most of them know that I love them. Very few seem to actively dislike me.That last one isn’t a deal-breaker, but it’s convenient when they don’t hate you every day. That makes everything harder.

So, it’s not personal when things aren’t going well. Several of my better students, hanging out in my room by choice the other day, talking about life, and apparently genuinely interested in my honesty, casually mentioned that half the time they just don’t get this class, don’t really like the subject, and wish we did a number of things quite differently.

I wonder if Houdini, in his waning hours, found time to be flattered that his final visitor thought so highly of his abdominal muscles as to preclude any thought of pulling his punches. The comment stung, and it wasn’t the first time I’d heard similar sentiments – from solid students, good kids who were doing well in the class. They clearly meant no offense, and seemed oblivious to my near-death and subsequent internal wailing and gnashing.

I’m genuinely glad they’re comfortable being honest. It wasn’t personal. And not everyone finds the same things stimulating, or challenging, or interesting.

But while they like me well enough, they lack a foundation for trusting the way we’re doing things. Some of this is because it’s their first AP class, and some is because I’m new in the district and don’t yet have a “track record.” Some of it, though – and I hate this part – is because there are definitely things I should have done better, organized more effectively, known more about, handled differently.

That’s why it stung – because they weren’t entirely wrong.

A similar group a few days later suggested the reason so many resisted my approach was because it was no longer enough to just remember and recite the ‘right’ answers the way they always have – they’re expected to analyze what they know, and to apply it in unexpected ways.

I like that answer better. They weren’t wrong, either, but that doesn’t make the first group less correct.

The only way I know to fix the credibility issue is to be credible. That can only be done over time. Which brings me to…

How Important Is It For Teachers To Master Their Content?

We tell new teachers all the time that it doesn’t matter whether they know everything there is to know about their subject as long as they know how teach it and the kids know they care. We then tell them it’s OK that they don’t know everything there is to know about how to teach, as long as the kids know they care and they’ll get better at it over time.

Both of these things are true enough – for new teachers.

But really knowing and understanding your content and related skills does matter. It matters in your effectiveness, it matters in your credibility, and it matters in terms of how often you go home at the end of the day feeling like you suck and may have single-handedly destroyed the future and it’s only Wednesday.

I’ll feel better when I know the content better. I’ll do better when I’m more comfortable with the skills. Those things are both fixable – I have a “learning mindset,” after all – but like so many other things, they take time.

Am I Teaching To The Test? When Do I Stick To The Curriculum and When Do I Follow the Rabbit of Oh-My-God-I-Saw-A-Glimmer-Of-Interest?

I’ve written about this previously, and while I’m at peace with my awkward balance in theory, that hardly resolves the daily details. A related dilemma involves pushing ahead versus slowing down and sacrificing next week’s content and skills to better understand last week’s.

Most of you know exactly what I’m talking about because you wrestle with variations of this every week.

Am I Being Responsive To The Needs Of My Kids Or Just A Touch… Insecure?

We all know the stereotypes. The dry old fart who uses the same transparencies he inherited from his undead sire a century ago, uninterested in and incapable of change. Kids should adjust to him or take the consequences. The touchy-feely mess of frosted flakes in a frump-sweater, like Pauline Fleming in Heathers. (“I suggest we get everyone together in the cafeteria – both students and teachers – and just… TALK, and… FEEL! Together!”) She’d go to their parties if they’d invite her. The approval of teenagers is her only source of self-esteem.

Neither is typical, and neither is fair. But it’s genuinely not always easy to know when to adjust based on student response and when to stick to your guns believing you know what’s best.

If I could have an answer to only one of my dilemmas, I’d probably start with this one. It’s tethered to a larger argument in education – the false dichotomy we’ve set up on social media between “grit-suffer-boot-camp-crush-them-for-progress!” and “nurture-cookies-love-coddle-them-into-excellence.” Kids simply aren’t that homogenous, nor most circumstances that binary.

Ideally, we’re all studied professionals, networking on social media, having hard conversations and sharing risky reflections within our departments, then moving ahead boldly, confident in the pedagogy and the kids alike. We adjust, we assess, we love, and we continue to learn, and at some point we hear the distant notes of Mr. Holland’s Opus being played down the hall saying maybe we did OK.

Sometimes, though, we’re just doing the best we can – kicking pedagogical booty one day and wondering if our brother-in-law can still get us that gig at his insurance office the next. That’s O.K. As long as we keep going, and getting better when we can.

I’m still looking for ways to be more effective, but I’m done worrying that it’s not right or not enough – at least for now. I’ll let you know how it goes.

RELATED POST: Teachers Are Delusional

RELATED POST: Teach Like You

<img decoding="async" src="https://files.bluecerealeducation.com/drupal/CharacterCynic.jpg" alt="House Glove" title="House Glove" width="199" height="150" style="float: left; margin: 2px; border: 2px solid black;" data-eio="l">‘D’ Is For ‘Dilemma’

Next Slide, Please

Let’s Go To The Rubric

Cross My Heart

What’s Your Point?

Episode #1:

Episode #2:

Episode #3

#5: States and Some Districts Are REALLY Committed to Testing and Pointless Paperwork

#4 Bipolar Teacher Disorder

<img decoding="async" src="https://files.bluecerealeducation.com/drupal/2Faces.jpg" alt="Many Faces" title="Many Faces" style="float: left; margin: 2px 3px;" width="150" height="188" data-eio="l">

#3 Every Teacher Is Different. Every Classroom Is Different.

<img decoding="async" src="https://files.bluecerealeducation.com/drupal/2Moons.jpg" alt="Moon Child" title="Moon Child" style="float: right; margin: 2px 3px;" width="240" height="135" data-eio="l">#2 The “Problems” With Public Education Are Huge Advantages

#1 It’s All About Resources

Your Ticket-Out-The-Blog

‘D’ Is For ‘Dilemma’

#2 The “Problems” With Public Education Are Huge Advantages