I made the mistake last weekend of suggesting that we should consider the possibility that there’s more to a fulfilled, meaningful life than that which is measured by the state tests required to graduate high school. You’d think I’d declared all math an abysmal waste of time, all science a fraud, and recommended the ideal path to a diploma would consist primarly of smoking a little weed and lying around in a pile naked. 

I am a product of my presumptions, to be sure. I see the world through the filters of my experience and my convictions – we all do, I suppose. For those of us swimming in a reality defined by data-based such-and-such or assessment-driven so-and-so, the line between ‘higher scores’ and ‘happy future’ quickly blurs. It’s the only way to explain how otherwise sensible people working within the bureaucracy of public school systems in the heart of the midwest can insist with conviction that they are doing so despite global competition for their position – and only holding their own because of their ability to answer grammar trivia on a computer screen under tightly controlled conditions.

There are, nevertheless, plenty of successful people who could not currently pass OK EOI exams – and far more whose success is built on things we clearly don’t consider priorities, judging by what’s mandated and tested. While I didn’t realize what a controversial statement I was making by suggesting such things, I still insist that – if this particularly limited, distorted, and obsessive body of knowledge is SO ESSENTIAL to anyone getting a job, finding love, or deciding between Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime – the legislators mandating the exams should gladly take the tests themselves to establish their own worthiness to hold the very positions from which they issue such dictates. 

Can you imagine testing day at the Capitoll?

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There are some people with the credibility to talk to us about school, however – and in case you missed it, here’s some of the best of what they had to say this past week…

Scott is a Wannabe Innovator – Scott Haselwood on Teaching From Here is pretty sure we all need to get a bit more serious about #edtech. He shares some of his experiences leading into this, and issues a challenge to the rest of us to step up our risk game a bit. I was so startled I nearly dropped my chalk into the mimeograph machine! I may not always understand Haselwood when he gets all post-20th Century on us, but he’s Charter #11FF and therefore absolutely correct about everything he suggests. Find Scott on this very modern ‘Twitter’ thing using one of your ‘computers’ or ‘smart phones’ at @TeachFromHere.  #oklaed 

So What Are We Doing Here? – I don’t know if Haselwood and Link Lowe of Donuts In The Lounge are besties or not, but they do seem to be on the same screen when it comes to tech. Lowe challenges us to look at available tech “just as we do any other tool in our #edutoolbox. If it is the best tool for the job, let’s absolutely use it but if it’s not, then you’re using a screwdriver to saw wood.” Use your tool to find Lowe doing the Twitters with great effectiveness at @MrLoweOfficial.  #oklaed 

Wordsworth’s “The World Is Too Much With Us” – Like Haselwood, JennWillTeach is flagship #11FF and wisdom therefore flows from her loins like honey from a comb. (See? Anyone can be poetic if they try. I was hoping it wouldn’t end up quite so laden with innuendo, of course – but who am I to question the Muse?) On her JennWillTeach blog, she shares what I hope will be the first of many insights into favorite content pieces and how she helps break them down for students. As someone born with a bad case of Poem Illiteracy, I can’t tell you how gratifying it is to read something like this and feel both smart and challenged at the same time. If Jenn had been my teacher in high school (despite her being about eight years old at the time)… well, I’d probably still have been in trouble all the time and failed that unit. But it would have been much more fun along the way. Follow @JennWillTeach on the Twitters.  #oklaed 

We should check in and see how that core curriculum assessment is going with our legislators…

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Huh. Well, that does explain the whole ‘tax cuts for prosperity’ approach, I guess.

Carrying Each Other – On a bit heavier note, Rebecka Peterson on One Good Thing reminds us of something none of us like to admit – we can’t fix it all. All the struggles, all the people, all the nightmares… we’re just teaching a little school and hoping it’s enough. Peterson suggests, though, that it’s not always about the fixing so much as the mourning with those who mourn. Yeah, I know – serious stuff. But well worth the read. Rebecka is on Twitter at @RebeckaMozdeh.  #oklaed

And When This Is Done… – To wrap things up, Sherri Spelic at The Edified Listener looks at her plate, and decides that maybe she has more control over what goes on it and how she frames those things than perhaps any of us generally admit. I’m not so good at the thoughtful-wise-sharing thing myself, so I’m glad a treasured few others are. She’s one of them. Think back at her on the Twitters at @edifiedlistener. 

Surely things are going better in OKC by now. One last look at the powers-that-be and their no-doubt-ample-success with the required curriculum…

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Huh. Oh well.

Go be amazing, my darlings! You are a big friggin’ deal this week, and every week thereafter! Reward yourself with a hot, fluffy biscuit. 

I Love Fall.

Hockey has started again, the weather is occasionally tolerable, and I sorta kinda know my kids. 

Not everyone is as thrilled with shorter days and cooler weather. I will now adjust this bizarre attitude by inserting a rather awkward music video for a very nifty song.  

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Many of us are swept along in the spiraling essentials of the day – which is awesome. It’s what we do. Nevertheless, there are a few things this past week it’d be a shame to miss. I gather them here, for thee.

Game Strategy – Anthony Purcell on Random Teacher Thoughts shares a tale of his students gaming a classroom, um… game… in order to increase their odds of winning. He didn’t plan it, but he had to love it. Even when it’s not what we had in mind, it’s so cool when kids are thinky. Find Purcell and his very serious dog on the Twitters at @MrP_tchr.  #oklaed

The Great Data Chase – Dad Gone Wild talks about his love of running, and then measuring the running, and then really seriously measuring every odd aspect of or element involved in running, until (a) it’s become quite difficult to run, and (b) it’s become even more difficult to love the actual running. I totally believe his face value sincerity, but fortunately for us, it turns out this is a nice little metaphor for education as well. Follow TC Weber – the wildly gone dad in question – on the Twitters at @norinrad10. 

When Discipline Yins, Compassion Must Yang – Dan Tricarico, certified #11FF and The Zen Teacher, reflects on calling down ‘Robert’ on the VERY FIRST DAY of school. Don’t you hate it when you’re pretty sure you’re doing the teachy stuff wrong? On the other hand, those moments you kinda don’t stink are pretty sweet. You simply MUST follow Dan on the Twitters at @TheZenTeacher. 

On a less-inspirational note, while #CommonCore standards may have been the Devil’s Petroleum Jelly, it’s apparently not as easy as OK Leggies figured to throw a couple people in a room and bust out the GREATEST PEDAGOGICARY STANDARDS OF HIGHNESS LEARNARIFFIC MATHPLOSION TRUTHSPLAINED OHMYGODOKLAROCKS in the known universe. Who knew, other than everyone? Nate Robson of Oklahoma Watch shares the rather brutal assessments of some amusing experts. Follow Nate on the serious side of the Twitters at @OKWnate.  #oklaed 

Finally, A Piece Definitely Worth A Revisit…

Symbolically Speaking – David Burton of Idealistically Realistic offers this thoughtful – but concise – history of flags and symbolic expression in response to recent debates over the Confederate flag. I love Burton’s stuff and only wish I had the power and influence to persuade him to write more often. Help me peer pressure him into doing things he doesn’t want to do; you can start by following him on the Twitters at @APTeacherBurton.  #oklaed

Go be amazing this week! I’m proud of most of you. You may not be doing everything right, or feeling it all of the time, or even certain exactly what we’re trying to accomplish in this odd little calling. But you’re here, and doing it, and dedicated enough to follow this blog on top of all that. 

I can’t help but love you for that. Drinking juice from mason jars.

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Fall is falling, teachers keep teaching, life keeps doing whatever life does, and even though bloggers are bloggering, you may have missed something good this week.

No worries, my Eleven Faithful Followers (#11FF) – I’m here with essential highlights and thoughtful framings. I do this to serve you, the reader – and… it helps reduce the amount of new content I actually have to create myself to keep this blog active.

What, you think I got nothin’ better to do than sit around blogging all day? Some of us WORK for a living over here!

Part One: Painful Realities

“On Standardized Testing” by Olivia Fantini – if you don’t know @ButtonPoetry, you should fix that immediately. Oh such speakifying!

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School District Size; School District Spending – Rick Cobb’s OkEducationTruths is required reading in #oklaed. Here he breaks down the latest babble-slander from the idealogues against public education, analyzing them with such clarity even I mostly understand. My personal favorite moment: “I’m no economist. I’m just an administrator who wrote his dissertation over Oklahoma school district expenditures, with a focus on economies of scale and diseconomies of scale. If you were one of the 12 people who read it, you would’ve been dazzled with passages such as this:  …….    Ok, none of it was really exciting. It’s a dissertation.” If you don’t follow @okeducation on the Twitters, you’re a big stinky doo-doo head who doesn’t care about the children. 

Will The Real Ms. Smith Please Stand Up? – Mindy D of This Teacher Sings continues her reality-sharing regarding #oklaed teacher pay by sharing some of the reactions and feedback prompted by her previous post on the subject. It’s not whining if it truly hurts; we’re losing teachers who want to be in the classroom for all the best reasons, but end up in either other states or other professions over selfish things like protein, or not getting their kids’ entire wardrobes from Goodwill. Best quote: “‘Teachers aren’t in it for the money,’ they say. They’re right. We aren’t… But we didn’t take a vow of poverty.” Follow @MrsDSings on the Twitters. Play nice and she might even follow you back.

The EdReformers Stratagem – Rob Miller at A View From The Edge may be giving in to the dark side. One of the most positive, reasonable voices of #oklaed, it’s almost disorienting how bluntly he calls out pseudo-#edreform, mis-funding, and faux accountability from high places. Is the bizarre clusterfoolery of recent years merely laying the groundwork for a larger narrative of public school failure and teacher apathy in order to justify a new edu-order? Surely not… it’s inconceivable in this day and age that we’d allow our economic or political leaders to manufacture or distort crises in order to justify their self-interested maleficence! Follow @edgeblogger on the Twitters for more crazy conspiracy theories which oh-my-god-are-probably-true. 

Part Two: It’s All About The *sniff* CHILDREN…

5 Ways To Make Homework Meaningful and Manageable – Angela Stockman on Brilliant or Insane does such a nice job of ‘slap you around’ attention-getting without becoming that annoying lady from out-of-state who led that horrible PD day in your district awhile back and you all made fun of at lunch. Here she challenges the value of some types of homework without making me roll my eyes. I’m still so totally edu-crushing on her. Follow Stockman (“May I Call You ‘Angie’?”) on the Twitters at @AngelaStockman and ask her if she likes me back – check ‘yes’ or ‘no’. 

The Energy Cost and the Power of Empathy – P.L. Thomas, aka The Becoming Radical, can be mighty insightful for someone with so many degrees. He makes a very accessible case for introvert awareness – it’s not being ‘soft’ on kids to recognize when more volume, more people, more activity, isn’t the yee-haw for some of us it might be for the majority. As a long-time shunner-of-groups myself, I very much appreciate his message. Follow @plthomaEdD on the Twitters – but don’t take it personally if he slides away to recharge from time to time.

Students Should Be Able To Show What They Know (?) – “There is a huge difference between ‘How do I figure out if this student understands?’ and ‘How do I make this student prove to me he gets it?’ The first is a valuable approach; the second is the first step on the road toward wasting everybody’s time… The more we demand that students put on a show to prove to us that they Know Stuff, the more we will design artificial tasks that demand a set of skills and knowledge entirely different from the skills and knowledge we really want to measure.” Pith, thy name is Peter Greene of Curmudgucation. No wonder he can publish a blog anyone can read for free anytime, and still I gladly bought several hard copies of his book – Curmudgucation: What Fresh Hell. So should you. At the very least, follow @palan57 on the Twitters. You’ll be a better person for it. 

Worth Revisiting…

We opened with @ButtonPoetry, and we’ll finish there as well. I never get tired of this one. I say with no irony and only minimal humor that if I could help my students become pelicans, I could die knowing we won. That they won. That it worked. 

Justin Lamb – “The Pelicans” (*language warning*)

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This week, I recap sobering analyses and frustrated responses to various inanities and quagmires of this illustrious profession…

If you’re not up for it, I suggest merely watching this video and moving on. No worries – see you next week! Touch the future, not the children!

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Are they gone? OK, good – let’s get down to business.  

Oklahoma Speaker of the House Jeff Hickman took time this week to spread a fresh layer of loathing and ignorance over Oklahoma public schools.

We live in a time of dramatic false dichotomies – you EITHER think it’s OK to kill black citizens for not showing proper deference OR you hate cops and want them to die instead. You EITHER revile even minimal dress codes for young ladies in high school OR you want them all raped and killed and think it will be their own damn fault, etc. I don’t wish to add another.

But I cannot, at my most broad-minded, come up with more than two possible explanations for Hickman and his ilk in the Oklahoma legislature. Even more troubling to me, I can’t tell which I consider worse.

Either Hickman is so ignorant and deluded as to be unfit to live on his own, let alone hold public office, or he’s a Frank Underwood-level cynic, flinging spraypainted bull$#!+ at the unwashed masses. In other words, it’s difficult to know if he’s trying to further ruin the state, our children, and the future out of complete cluelessness, or if he’s doing it on purpose so he can climb his sad ladder to mediocrity before hell beckons.  

Please let me know if I’m overlooking genuine alternative explanations. I’d be relieved – I assure you.

In any case, the silver lining of this $#!+scapade was that it brought forth a few voices from whom we haven’t heard much lately, and stirred up one we’re happy has stuck around.

With All Due Respect, Vol. 3 – Rick Cobb of OkEducationTruths discusses the Hickman interview which stirred the kerfuffle this week. Brilliantly. 

Teacher Shortage Is Real. No Claim. – Claudia Swisher, edu-gladiator writ large and Fourth Generation Teacher, with her take on Hickman’s comments and this thing the rest of us call ‘Reality’. 

False Claims and Old Ideas – Rob Miller, who may have posted on this subject twice just to make sure he made the Blue Serials roundup this week, nevertheless acquits himself well on A View From The Edge.

The Mercenary Approach to Education – I should note that it worked. Rob secured a mention again this week. There should be stickers! Meanwhile, he’s annoyed – but in, you know, a fun-to-read-and-agree kind of way. 

My Open Letter to Speaker Hickman and the House Leadership – Nicole Shobert doesn’t come out of hiding as often as I’d like, but when she does, it’s always worth your perusal. This is must-read. Follow Nicole on the Twitters as @NicoleShobert.

Facts & New Ideas… A Different View – One of my favorite things about Scott Haselwood is his willingness to look past the cliches and platitudes and insist we actually talk workable solutions. No exception here in his reaction to the Hickman inanity.

On a slightly lighter note, I can’t let the Speaker’s palaver distract us from other #OklaEd greatness…

Trust In Me / Ms. Smith Makes Ends Meet… For Now – A double shot this week from Mindy Dennison at This Teacher Sings. In the former, she calls on the power of no less than Etta James to ask why we find it so far-fetched to trust professionals to be professionals, and teachers to teach. In the latter, she wonders why we continue to cry for excellence while starving anyone who dare take up the calling. You really MUST follow Mrs D on the Twitters at @MrsDSings.

Normally I wrap with something worthy of revisiting from months gone by…

But I’m already way long for what’s supposed to be a cute, functional review of the week, AND I simply must include this double shot from my newest #educrush Angela Stockman. She’s a big deal something or other out of New York – but before you judge, keep in mind she ain’t from that one part…

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8 Ways To Tame An Angry Parent – More than a list, this is a complementary mini-counseling session in 1200 words or less. Good advice, good insights, much of it stuff we kinda know when it’s someone ELSE dealing with a difficult situation, but forget when our adrenaline starts to rise. 

Schooling The Terrible Teacher: 10 Things Parents Should Never Do – The flip side of the previous post, Stockman nicely balances humanity, insight, and a dose of humor and goodwill in this missive to parents wanting more than to conquer the evil educator.

Check out Angela Stockman on her own page, or as a ‘senior blogger’ (I don’t know what that is, but I wanna be one if I grow up) at Brilliant or Insane. Definitely follow her on the Twitters as @AngelaStockman – trust me on this one. 

BE AMAZING, MY #11FF! The need is great, and our gifts sometimes seem so small – but I am in awe of each and every one of you and what you do. Never. Give. Up.