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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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