Can You Teach Us?

May 14, 2021June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Public education has been overlooking – or worse, neglecting – a golden opportunity to improve. It’s not only been right in front of us all along, it’s been kicking us and taking our lunch money! And yet, somehow, where we should have recognized an opportunity, all we’ve seen is a competitor. In some cases, maybe even a threat.

It’s like we don’t actually WANT to teach gooder. I assume this is largely due to the various teachers’ unions and Hillary Clinton’s personal email server.

We’ve been told for several decades now that “school choice,” vouchers, educational “savings” accounts, etc., are essential for students to have access to a truly quality education, and that a little healthy competition will make us all better. I, for one, have been guilty of pushing back against this rhetoric. I’ve even been so cynical as to suggest ulterior motives by many of those involved (for which I assure you I now have all sorts of lingering guilt). But as Indiana dramatically expands their various “choice” initiatives and other red states do the same, I believe it’s time to change our approach.

It’s time to seek the guidance of the masters. It’s time to admit our own shortcomings and failures and learn from those who’ve accomplished so much. It’s not selling out, kids – it’s buying in. Besides, there’s nothing for me here now. I want to learn the ways of the Choice and become highly qualified like you. There’s still good in me. Surely you can sense it.

Teach us.

Learning The Ways Of The Choice

The primary argument for “school choice” is that the quality of the education is just plain better. The teachers are better. The administration is better. The system is organized more efficiently. The curriculum is more coherent and whole. The atmosphere simply reeks of excellence.

It’s easy to lose sight of this because those of us on the pro-“destroying the future” side of things have been too long distracted by this crazy idea that private schools achieve their goals primarily by picking and choosing which students they want on their rosters and turning away the rest. We’ve quibbled over many institutions’ focus on religious dogma, questionable science, distorted or overly selective history, and a tendency to blame everything from poverty to skin tone on some combination of personal failure and the sins of Cain. We’ve let ourselves become overly focused on the relative lack of improvement demonstrated year after year in “educational outputs” instead of zeroing in on the handful of truly impressive outliers here and there who get cited in all the brochures.

In short, we’ve been too cynical. Let’s try assuming the best about our cohorts in the world of private religious schooling, shall we?

I’m Here To Rescue You

If it’s about better teaching, then please – come train us. Show us your ways. It has to be better than most of the “professional development” to which we’re usually subjected. I’ll even pay attention and do the activities – I promise!

If it’s about better school administration, then come run a building or two for us. The pay has to be better, and if there’s such a thing as “doing the Lord’s work,” then surely this qualifies. Come show us how to reduce waste and establish that culture of excellence or whatever. We even promise not to pull the “union won’t let you” card out for the first year or two.

If it’s about better policies, then that’s easy. Just email us a PDF and we’ll gladly give it a go. Anything conflicting with state requirements should be simple enough to fix. If all of these legislators are as committed to educational excellence as they keep insisting (particularly when it involves more “freedom” and greater “choice”), surely they’d be willing to waive a statute or two. Or 3,497.

If it’s about curriculum, we’ll gladly pay for a copy. We’re apparently flush with wasted cash here in the world of public education. It would no doubt be an improvement, I assure you. Our administration buys some weird stuff already and your standards can’t be any worse than “Teach Like A Mongol Barbarian” or “Writing Through Excellence In Compassionate Modal Communication Across The Curriculum For Everyone!”

If it’s about facilities, well… I guess that depends on what we’re missing. Apparently we waste all kinds of resources on overstaffing and glossy copy paper and what not – maybe cutting back a little on the bad stuff would free up some funds. If not, there’s always another fundraiser pushing overpriced M&Ms on kids. Or Kickstarter.

In short, we’re ready. Come show us how to teach our students as effectively as you teach yours. Come show us how to be more committed, less wasteful, and become overall better people both personally and professionally. You win. We’re mediocre and whiney. You’re talented and full of passion. Help us, Obi-Wan Kenobi – you’re our only hope.

The Terminally Exhausted Part

There is one tiny little downside to this plan: it will never happen. And even if it did, it would never work.

Maybe that’s two tiny little downsides.

The problem isn’t that private school teachers aren’t any good at what they do. Many of them are amazing. The problem is that so are many public school educators. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, that’s not really the issue. Nor is it about curriculum or facilities or administration.

When private schools have superior outcomes, you’ll generally find they started with very different students than the public school they’re supposed to be “inspiring” down the road. That’s not even necessarily a bad thing. The best and brightest need good teachers just like everyone else. They’re not always easier to teach or intrinsically motivated to learn. As any teacher of advanced students (public or private) can assure you, “top” kids are just as much work as “bottom” kids – just in different ways.

But let’s stop pretending it’s an accomplishment to inherit upper middle class white kids from two-parent families whose lives have been full of travel and books and engaging conversation and art and expectations and consistency. Let’s stop pretending that’s somehow not one of the biggest draws of private schooling – the chance to have your elite little darling surrounded by and shaped by other folks’ elite darlings. We see it in AP or IB classes in public schools. We see it in neighborhoods in different parts of town. We see it in the churches we choose to attend and the stores in which we choose to shop. We can debate whether it’s ethically “right” or “wrong,” but only if we start by being honest about this very human tendency we’re indulging.

Let’s stop pretending that “choice” is about improving “educational outcomes” for everyone. Sure, that fits a certain school of capitalistic thought – but after decades of spouting the admittedly catchy rhetoric that goes along with it, it turns out it simply doesn’t work in any sort of predictable or consistent way. The vast majority of the time, “school choice” is about getting US away from THEM, whether the distinction is racial, economic, or religious. (That’s also why it’s usually the schools that have their choice of students; not students who have a true choice of schools.) Personally, I think it undercuts one of the primary functions of public education if we allow large segments of the community to pull their children into little enclaves and teach them stuff that runs against the goals and success of the larger society. But we can’t even have that argument unless we start being honest with each other (and ourselves) about what we want and why we make the choices we do.

The X-Files Problem

One of the most frustrating premises of the classic “X-Files” series was that not only was the truth “out there,” but there were numerous individuals fully aware of it who simply wouldn’t tell the rest of us. Scully and Muldar were working not only against aliens, freaks, and the elusive nature of reality – they were being taunted by their own government who could have saved all sorts of time and money if they’d simply sent them a few PDF summaries of how things really worked.

It’s foolish to pretend that the secret to education is out there – the unified learning theory that reaches all students in all situations and imparts all the knowledge and skills we’d like if only we were willing to push the “GO” button. There are good ideas and bad, stuff that works in many situations with many different types of kids and stuff that’s pretty stupid no matter where it’s tried. There are teachers working wonders in impossible situations and entire districts coasting along mired in mediocrity and bureaucracy. And yes, there are private schools doing a much better job with challenging populations than their public counterpart down the street.

There are legit arguments to be had about “school choice” when it comes to private schools willing to teach a largely secular curriculum to students very much like those attending the local public schools and take responsibility for both the results and how they treat their students in order to make it happen. We pretend we’re having them all the time.

Usually we’re not.

If “school choice” is of genuine benefit to all students, it should be easy to both document and replicate – neither of which seems to be happening much. If it’s not, the conversation should be about whether or not there are other good reasons to keep doing it. We can’t have that discussion, however, until all parties are willing to get a little more honest with themselves about what they’re actually doing and why they’re doing it.

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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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Solutions and Ideological Justice

January 19, 2018June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Anyone in the world of public education for any length of time knows that we have a tendency to oversimplify things which are more complicated than we care to admit and to complicate things which simply don’t have to be that difficult.

“It’s such a challenge to find and retain good teachers!”

(We should pay them more.)

“We should talk to the local colleges about their training programs.”

(Yes, and then pay teachers better.)

“I’m thinking of a book study for district administration on what makes an effective educator.”

(Great – I’m in. But you get what you pay for, and…)

“We’re bringing in a consultant. He’s pretty expensive, but I think it will be worth it to improve teacher quality.”

(Yes, or we could use that money to pay our teachers better…)

“Let’s show that TED Talk on how Google runs their home offices. I’m having some of the chairs painted bright colors like in the video and I’m hoping that will change the climate building-wide.”

(OK, but Google also seeks out top talent and then pays them well…)

“We put in all this training and then lose them to the private sector…”

(Which pays them better.)

You get the idea.

But some things are genuinely difficult. Sometimes there are no easy answers – at least not useful ones.

Terrorism is a fun topic that can’t help but enliven any social event. Let’s take a hypothetical nation with a corrupt or marginalized government, high poverty, and limited opportunity, which becomes a “breeding ground” (here’s to loaded language) for terrorism. We’ll call it Scarykillastan.

For purposes of our example, let’s grossly oversimplify our response options. We can crack down militarily – bombs and soldiers and counterstrikes and whatnot – or we can nation-build – schools and health care and clean water and jobs. As part of this gross oversimplification, let’s assume both options cost roughly the same up front.

If the goal is to reduce terrorism, the only consideration should be which option accomplishes this more effectively. But… is it?

Imagine for a moment that the 1960’s flower-in-the-rifle-barrel thing turns out to be legitimately effective – that if we establish schools and clinics and make sure the locals (including the terrorists) have access to food and clean water, terrorism drops by 90% (remember – hypothetical). On the other hand, if we bomb the hell out of them and their support systems – women, children, and neighboring innocents alike – terrorism drops locally by 75% but pops up in surrounding areas for a net drop of, say… 50%.

How many of us would still demand the latter option over the former? How many of us would still feel on some primal level that the peaceful response is WRONG – that it’s rewarding bad behavior? Coddling backwards mindsets and lifestyles? That it demonstrates weakness and lack of will?

I’m not mocking anyone. It genuinely feels backwards. Some of you will be angry even reading it as a hypothetical example. I’m also not sure things actually work out quite so efficiently in real life, although with this particular example I’ve heard some good arguments that they could. But many of us would argue against the hippie solution even if it repeatedly and demonstrably worked better – for less money, at the cost of fewer lives, and possibly even improving our moral standing in the world.

Child poverty and health care are another example – elements of a complex and extensive reality which I’m again grossly oversimplifying in hopes of making a point. Currently, there’s an unforgivably high number of minors in the U.S. who lack proper care – healthy meals, medical attention, counseling, mentors, etc. Some end up getting in trouble, going to jail or otherwise dropping out of mainstream society. Others avoid major legal entanglements but never rise above their class or circumstances. A number of them die and leave behind the next generation of mess. And the beat goes on.

Since this is a hypothetical (although the problem itself is very real), we can say with clinical detachment that these people are a huge drain on society. They cost money via emergency rooms, detention facilities, and prisons. They burn through resources when they go to school or use public accommodations, and are more likely to vandalize, pollute, and require attention from police or fire services. They don’t become as economically productive as they could, and often end up on public assistance of various sorts.

It’s frustrating, and expensive.

What if it could be demonstrated with great certainty that spending more on social services, education, health care, etc., leads to lower crime, higher graduation rates, and over time saves millions of local dollars? What if it could be established that taking better care of society’s most marginalized elements pays off in both human and fiscal terms? Just to stretch our hypothetical, let’s throw in some extra care for women, sex ed in every high school, and maybe some affirmative action, and have it all result in better neighborhoods, higher productivity, fewer unwanted pregnancies and STDs, and a reliable surplus in the state coffers. Would we do it?

It sounds like a no brainer – at least in my oversimplified hypothetical. But if it were that binary, that guaranteed, would we do it?

I’m not sure the answer is a universal “YES!” I’m not even confident I could get a majority on board.

Because for many of us, it just feels wrong. Like we’re enabling bad behavior, even if (in our hypothetical) it reduces bad behavior. Like we’re rewarding sloth, even if (in our hypothetical) more people are working and keeping jobs. Like we’re compromising on our values, even if (in our hypothetical) more people are living out our values as a result.

I’ve read and listened to conversations not so different from these in schools over the past few years. Sometimes it starts with experiments in restorative justice in place of traditional discipline, or some sort of cultural diversity training in an effort to reduce suspensions and referrals. Other times it begins with conversations about grading practices, or due dates, or student efficacy, or standards-based something-or-other.

I’ve written about some of these topics before; I’m not exactly a committed reformer when it comes to education policy or trendy solutions. And almost everything about public education is more complicated than social media and expensive presenters would have you believe.

But what if it wasn’t?

What if eliminating grades could be shown to dramatically improve student learning? What if eliminating detentions and suspensions could be shown to drastically reduce discipline problems (not just acknowledgment of those problems, but the actual problems)? What if taking more radical steps towards cultural equity and social justice didn’t create chaos and rolling eyes over talk of safe spaces and microaggressions, but could be repeatedly and objectively shown to improve behavior, and learning, and future success in life, and whatever else we think is important?

Would we enthusiastically begin doing those things?

Do we hesitate because the issues aren’t that simple? Because we’re skeptical as to whether this or that change could possibly have the dramatic impact its proponents claim? Is it because some of it sounds a bit trendy? Or trite? Or just… stupid?

There may be good reasons not to just dive in.

But is it possible that woven into the mix, just behind our carefully couched objections, is a much deeper layer of outrage, or annoyance? A primal demand for a different sort of justice, or vengeance? A vested interest in a sort of moral or cultural hierarchy?

Is it possible that whatever the very real challenges of counter-terrorism, or reducing child poverty, or improving public education, that the proverbial elephant in our subconscious room isn’t effectiveness or cost or validity, but a sense of ideological betrayal? Is there a morally outraged itch of some sort we can’t quite identify but which someone is threatening to stop scratching?

Because, seriously, CAN’T THOSE PEOPLE JUST GET THEIR %#(# TOGETHER AND THEN WE WON’T HAVE A PROBLEM ANYMORE AND WON’T HAVE TO KEEP BRINGING UP ALL THIS STUPID NEW-AGE INANITY?!? Or, more calmly, “Forget the results – can’t they just GET there the WAY we want them to?!”

You’ve probably thought or felt some variety of this in relation to at least some of these issues. I certainly have.

I’m not arguing for increased aid to Syria or more money for social programs (not here, anyway). I’m certainly not suggesting that more resolution circles or the mass burning of student policy handbooks will loose the Magi-gogical Unicorns to flit alongst your hallways, pooping rainbows of racial unity, well-mannered “grit,” and improved critical thinking skills across the curriculum.

Complicated issues are complicated even when we all think we want the same thing. But certainly the first step for anyone looking to make meaningful improvements or address deep-rooted difficulties should be to check our own motivations and attitudes. Otherwise, we’re in real danger of undermining the very values we claim to be defending, and hurting very real people in the process.

Weird Silence

August 24, 2017June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

It’s funny the things that make us uncomfortable.

Not, like, in general. It’s not funny that snakes make me uncomfortable, or anyone messing with someone else’s eyeballs. Hair anywhere other than someone’s head. Dogs in the backs of moving pickup trucks. Those things should make anyone uncomfortable.

But it’s weird what can make us uncomfortable in our classrooms. One of them happened to me today.

It’s been a wild start. I wrote previously about trying to “hit the ground running,” which we did. Friday was all photos and orientations and policy manuals. Monday was a shortened schedule so kids could view the eclipse (yes, we used funny glasses). Tuesday was a “late start day” for meetings and then “Bonus Hour” in the afternoon and a special “close reading” activity and boy-howdy was I relieved when I realized we’d finally have THREE DAYS IN A ROW on the same schedule to finish out this week!

In the midst of the chaos, we’ve introduced “World History” and what it means to add “AP” to the beginning. I’ve crammed in a few lectures, some jigsaw reading, a pretty big discussion about foundational themes – all while trying to get to know my kids enough to be effective in a new subject in a new place in a new reality stream.

Yesterday, I introduced an assignment I knew might take them a while. See, at some point, if you’re going to learn history, you have to start learning some history.

I’ll let that sink in.

I love creative teaching strategies and movement and interaction, and yes, I let one class talk me into showing “The Mesopotamians” music video after they’d been particularly productive. But eventually one of two things has to happen if kids are going to learn world history. Either I’m going to need to tell them stuff they need to know about world history – probably with visuals projected on a big screen in some way – or they’re going to need to read stuff about world history – probably from a book or article I’ve provided.

It’s that latter option which led to the weird, uncomfortable thing.

See, we busted out our textbooks for the first time yesterday – but late in the hour, when they barely had time to admire the large, consistent subheadings and svelte incorporation of maps and graphs. Today, I gave them most of the hour to read through the chapter and figure out what parts seem important before beginning this nifty, artsy-fartsy assignment I chose mostly because I think it’s pedagogically sound at this point with these kids, but partly because I have a huge classroom with very bare walls and I think the results will look both academically impressive and decorative.

Judge me, baby – I will not apologize. *throws arms open and head back, waiting*

So after some introductory things and a recap of goals and expectations for the assignment, I sat down and… let them work. I had to start figuring out the online grade book and enter some assignments from earlier in the week. I’d also planned on looking over next week’s content when I realized…

It was silent in my room. Eerie creepy quiet, in the wrongest sort of way.

Thank god I’m a weathered veteran, or I might have bolted right then. Instead, I forced myself to maintain a detached, pseudo-disinterested facade as I casually surveyed the situation.

My ears eventually picked up the subtle scribbling of little mechanical pencils, and the periodic turning of pages. After what must have been seventeen or eighteen hours, a young lady leaned over to her tablemate and pointed to something in the text, whispering an apparent inquiry. Her cohort considered whatever she’d said, then nodded and gave a brief response which seemed to satisfy her. They both then continued doing this… this… horrifying “old way” schoolness.

I considered clarifying that it was OK for them to work together, including actual speech if necessary, but I knew they already knew that. And they were collaborating, at least here and there. So instead I took a casual stroll around the room, answering a few questions of the sort apparently important enough to ask when I pass into their “inquiry zone,” but which hadn’t merited a trip all the way to my desk or the labor of raising an entire hand.

It seemed they were all on task. Some were more productive than others, of course, but they were by and large playing school. So I did something crazy.

I sat down and entered some grades, then started reading up on the Classical Period of China in Chapter Three.

And that was perfectly OK. Productive, even.

The weird part is that for several minutes, this made me feel guilty. I was afraid someone might walk by and see what was happening and judge me – a fear having nothing to do with my very supportive and sensible co-workers and everything to do with reading too many education books and blogs.

If you’ve taught for any length of time, you’ve endured endless PD days, videos, handouts, faculty presentations, and perhaps even a horrible skit or two, built around three basic assumptions: (a) all teachers used to suck in every possible way, providing endless “before” examples, (b) most current teachers have no idea how to work with young people and probably don’t even like them very much, usually because of our cultural insensitivity, and (c) if we don’t embrace {insert trendy strategy here}, we’ll continue to suck and most likely destroy the future.

It’s much more pronounced on social media. The blogs, the chats, the #irritweeting platitudes. Somehow, the worst offenders seem to always have 28.6K followers and a new book you should buy.

“Classrooms don’t have to be quiet all of the time. If I come to your room and it’s loud, I won’t scold you – I’ll congratulate you!”
“We need to be the guide on the side, not the sage on the stage!”
“Whoever’s doing all the work is doing all the learning. If you exert the least bit of effort in preparing or implementing a lesson, you’re stuck in the Dark Ages of mimeograph machines and overhead projectors!”

Ironically, there are some pretty hard and fast doctrines generally accompanying these “revolutionary” ideas. Kids should be in charge of everything related to their education – content, methodology, evaluation, location, etc. – from about age four through their first Master’s Degree. Teachers who lecture or use Powerpoint in any context or for any purpose are the Devil’s Pedagogues. “Relationships” are more important than content or structure or pedagogy or pedigree, reading or writing or math – after all, they don’t care how much you know until you stop lighting stuff on fire in buckets and embrace starfish as they learn grit by celebrating failure, thus leaving two sets of footprints in the sand.

Honestly, it may be rooted in good intentions, but it gets a bit judgey. Most religions do when they stray from their central purpose.

So I’d like to assure all of the baby teachers out there, and remind some of the veterans, that all instructional and classroom management advice – the pedagogy, the brain research, the anecdotes, the activities – are (or should be) about giving you ideas. Options. Tools. Challenging you, or inspiring you. Maybe shaking you up or forcing you to question how you do things from time to time.

They’re not divine revelations. Flipped classrooms are a cool idea that work for many teachers in many circumstances; they’re not carved into stone tablets that Moses posted online for the Israelites to view as many times as necessary at home and ask questions about during the assembling of the people. Close reading strategies are good for many kids in many situations, and most of us could stand to be a bit more intentional about stuff like this, but they’re not silver bullets, no matter what that sample class from New Jersey did in that video. Even Socratic Circles or Inquiry-Based Anything sometimes work and sometimes don’t – that’s what keeps teaching interesting.

If you’re boring the crap out of your kids with droning lectures, then stop. If you’re ossifying their little brains with book work and worksheets, then you really do suck – you’re the guy in those horrible anecdotes they use to justify torturing the rest of us. And if you don’t actually like your kids… dude – go sell shoes or something. Less stress, more money.

Question your methods, absolutely. Challenge your perceived results. Be transparent with your co-workers in considering ways to be more effective. Don’t be insecure and stuck in the mythical, dark “ancient ways.”

But if you’re doing your best to figure out what works for you and your kids, and that involves a lecture or two, then you go, girl. If you require kids to occasionally sit down and crunch some content, do so without shame or apologies. You may even sporadically find use in multiple choice quizzes or a *gasp* movie or two.

“Old school” is not a synonym for “failure.” Neither is “direct instruction,” “hard deadlines,” or “quantitative assessment.” Progress is doing what works for your kids in your classroom in your reality. If you’re doing that, you don’t owe anyone an apology and have no need to make excuses. Buy that teacher book because it motivates you; not because it shames you. You’re already awesome, and many of you are working miracles in a fallen, stupid world. For totes realsies. Thank God you’re doing what you do, every day, so damn well.

Even if your classroom is, you know… occasionally a bit too quiet.

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Hole In The Wall Education

March 4, 2017June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I’m a bad person.

I’m an idealist with little use for idealists. It’s not personal. I like those I actually know. But their articles, and books, and speeches make me want to break things and yell school-inappropriate yells.

I resent speakers and writers who build their reputations on explaining how amazing children are and could be if these damn teachers would just get out of the way. I’m sure they’re nice people, smarter and probably better traveled than myself. It’s just that what starts as a neat isolated experience becomes a TED Talk, then a doctrine, then a Pink Floyd cover band.

“Hey, teachers! Leave those kids alone!”

Don’t get me wrong – it’s just peachy keen swell that throwing a few computers in the middle of an impoverished village and making sure no teachers interfere practically guarantees a bunch of eight-year olds will master calculus, cure cancer, and reverse climate change. Here’s to the success of every one of those dusty darlings and even newer, bigger opportunities for them to challenge themselves AND the dominant paradigm. Seriously.

Variations of this theme abound on Twitter, the blogosphere, and administrators’ bookshelves. Hand any teenager an iPad and stop crushing his little spirit with your outdated ways and he’ll learn like the wind. Enough, you fiend – let them love learning!

But I don’t buy it. Not even a little.

I can’t point to research or books with provocative edu-titles. If you really want me to, I’ll try it – I’ll lock my students in my classroom with the two relatively outdated computers available there and come back in May to release them.

Maybe it would be better to do the entire building… eleven hundred freshmen set free to learn with a bank of Dells and no silly adults with their stifling expectations. Imagine the money saved on staff – and computers never take personal days or violate professional dress code!

Forgive me if I don’t anticipate an education revolution as a result.

My bet is something more akin to Lord of the Flies, although I could be WAY off – it could be more Hunger Games or Clockwork Orange-y. I’m not prescient; I’ve just met teenagers.

It probably doesn’t help that my students have so much else they could do instead of take a self-directed learning journey of personal discovery. The kids in the inspirational anecdotes don’t tend to have an Xboxes, smart phones, cable TV, malls, or meals which include protein.

Remember how entertained you now think you were as a kid with just a cardboard box and some Cheez Whiz for a whole afternoon? That was great, mostly because you had ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING ELSE TO DO. Teeter totters are awesome compared to staring at dirt; they lose some magic compared to Halo: The Arousing. It’s just all so relative. In the land of rotary dial, he with the Atari is king.

But only there.

I’m not unsympathetic. I get what these writers and speakers are going for. Most are trying to make the very valid point that when we try to cram kids’ heads full of 87-pages of curriculum standards compiled by committees and approved by states to be tested by bubbles, we are unlikely to either fill their buckets OR light their fires.

Our American spawn resist being cajoled into dronehood – which is largely what public ed does and is designed to do. We do try these days to at least beat them into more CURRENT drone models… it’s just that things in the real world keep changing so fast…

But… technology! ALL LEARNING CAN BE GRAND MATH AUTO!

I’m not against online coursework. I know for a fact that it serves a useful function for certain kinds of students in specific situations. But let’s keep a little perspective.

We’re swept up in the promise of ‘individualized pacing’, intense engagement, and infinite branches of exploration – like the Holodeck or those Divergent serums. One would think educational software must be on the verge of surpassing the major video gaming companies in terms of graphics, storylines, and immersion. (Watch out Elder Scrolls VII – here comes Bioshock Civics: How the Powers of the Executive Branch Have Evolved Commensurate to Expansions in Mass Media!)

It’s not. Remember that Oregon Trail game we were all so excited about a few decades ago? That’s still about as cutting edge as educational games have managed, and that’s not even what most virtual learning is attempting.

The vast majority of online coursework consists of reading short passages, watching videos, following a few links, then answering multiple choice questions. There may be a little writing. You work alone, and guess at the multiple choice questions as often as necessary to hit 75% or whatever before you move on.

This pedagogy is everything we’ve been fighting against since Horace Mann. Nothing wrong with utilizing textbooks or lectures or video, but a teacher whose class is driven by such things is unlikely to win a Bammy.

To be fair, the more cutting-edge programs let you email your teacher or make a few lame required posts to a ‘discussion group’ from time to time. Truly this is leaps and bounds beyond my foldables or a good Socratic circle, but Fallout: Populism it is not.

Most learning happens because teachers in rooms keep trying to figure out how to inspire, motivate, cajole, or trick their darlings into learning things the teacher thinks are important even though the 11-year old may not realize it just yet.

There are glaring problems with this system, some within the school’s control and many more without. The biggest problem with the current model is also the most substantial barrier to all this self-directed learning we keep hearing will save us all – state legislatures dictate most of what’s supposed to be “important” and decide how these things will be assessed.

But the absurdity of rigid state mandates doesn’t mean the logical solution is to eliminate all adult guidance regarding essential knowledge or skills. Crazy as it may sound, many good teachers are perfectly capable of finding balances based on the abilities and interests of their kids – some non-negotiables, because hopefully the certified professional knows a few things the pre-teen does not, and some choice for the child regarding what they pursue and how they pursue it.

And if that doesn’t work, we can go back to your plan. But I’m not cleaning up after the pig head on a stick.

{This post is a repeat from many long moons ago. I still mean it, though, or I wouldn’t have chosen it to repost. Duh.}

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