Flint to Spark

Check out what my students did!

2010-12-18T01:35:00.000-08:00

The students in my class are trying to publish a quality literary magazine of all the best artists and writers at our school. We are trying out kickstarter.com as a way to advertise beyond the walls of our school community and the response has been surprising--already we are halfway to our goal!
This kind of a class is incredibly fun to "teach." It has a culture and feel all of its own.

Green School

2010-12-08T17:42:00.000-08:00

Space really does affect the way we learn and this is the coolest physical space I can imagine teaching in. Recycled white boards seem like a pretty easy step in the direction of sustainability that we could take with us into our traditional-style classrooms.

Attention Elsewhere

2009-12-10T18:36:00.000-08:00

Clearly I have not been posting much here. My attention is centered on our class ning page where students post a book review once a month when they finish reading a book they like. I'm doing it too; it's a nice exercise to write after you finish a book.

Check it out: www.dabooks.ning.com

A little perspective

2009-08-23T16:12:00.000-07:00

I just returned from five weeks of travel in Nicaragua and Costa Rica with an old high school friend. With no particular goal set other than enjoying one another’s company and speaking Spanish, we ate rice and beans, rode in the back of pick up trucks, woke up early to catch the sunrise on top of hostels, and slept soundly under bug nets after regular games of cards. (For a teacher who awakes to race the clock to work, this was pure heaven.)
This trip reminded me that I choose how much stress I chose to take on--no one pushes it on me. I realize now that the past two years of teaching I have felt a huge amount of pressure (probably self-imposed) to work more, think harder, out-do other teachers in my department, and sacrifice my personal well-being in the name of "doing it for the students." While the pressure served as a motivator, I didn't make time for myself or my friends, I didn't sleep well, and I didn't exercise as much as I like to. In the rush of the school year I get sucked in the microcosm of MY lesson plan and MY students, forgetting the larger purposes of thinking, reflecting, appreciating, and digesting.

On our journey Eden and I met a ton of ex-pats who took advantage of the cheap land prices and re-invented themselves in Central America. Business executives became eco-lodge managers, construction workers became beach bums, college students became international observers over peace tribunals, and bartenders became ice-cream shop owners. "You think of something you want to have in Costa Rica that you had back in Israel," one friendly restaurant owner told me, "and then before you know it you are an importer! I love how wide open it is with possibility."
This reinvention obviously doesn't come without socio-economic costs. The ex-pats and tourists raise prices for locals who sold their land for quick cash and, now homeless, flock to the slums outside of the capital. Many Nicaraguans don’t indulge in domestic travel because bus prices are too expensive. On the other hand, as one Nico reminded me, we are all equally trying to make meaning out of this life and these ex-pats, with their golden haired one-year-olds climbing freely in the back of old Land Rovers, seem incredibly happy in the “frontier.”

After befriending these global entrepreneurs, acupuncturists, and parents I realized that the central career question is not, as I have mistaken it up until now, "how am I going to make money in this lifetime?" but rather something more like "how much risk will you take to live your dreams?" or "how can I create a life that I find emotionally, spiritually, and mentally fulfilling?"

Tomorrow I start work at a smaller private school in its fifth year, and I see it as another test run. Is it possible to be a teacher and maintain personal balance? In this role as teacher can we realize the change we hope to see in the world? This past week of orientation felt creative and fun so I am hopeful, but if it doesn't work out I am no longer scared to start afresh and do something else. There are a few beaches in Costa Rica that still need yoga-hostels…

Saying Goodbye

2009-06-09T14:44:00.000-07:00

Last Monday I went to the retirement party of a beloved French teacher who has taught at my school for many years. I didn’t expect to, but I cried. I cried after four students played Chopin on the cello and collegues read The Little Prince aloud. I cried during the speeches and the photo montages, cried at the hand-made center pieces on the tables and the group of retierees who surrounded Jack for a photo. I cried at all the mommies and babies in the wings, bouncing and cooing. This school is such a family—it is really hard to divorce yourself from the cyclical ceremony of it all, the comfort of feeling part of something larger than yourself.

Everyone feels the year winding down; it’s like reading the last few pages of the favorite book you want to read quickly and slowly at the same time. Does so much emotion bubble up annually at jobs outside of academia? Do people cry when they leave boardrooms for the winter holidays? When they retire from 25 years of ibanking? When their airline goes bankrupt and it’s time to seek a new management job?

I’m leaving too—off to work at a small private school in Kapolei which, new and unformed with regard to tradition, is the polar opposite of the established school I now part from. So perhaps my tears came partly from selfish attachment, or a sense of personal loss. But I mostly just felt overwhelmed by the evidence that careers unexpectedly end and begin and take sudden turns. Therefore, the time we spend together is finite and must be honored and relished like a dragon fruit devoured with a spoon. I am grateful to have been at my school for two years (the second really helped me to ground myself in the classroom) and awestruck by the opportunity I had to work with such talented faculty and students. I hope I teased the fruit's flesh from the rind, munched through the seeds, and cleaned my plate.

Teacher 1, Teacher 2

2009-06-03T19:31:00.000-07:00

My friend Nick wrote me a great email in which he described two of his favorite high school teachers.

Mr. Miller, who taught physics and AP Bio, was renowned as the coolest teacher in the school. He was about 50 and skinny, with a wily black beard and a ratty blue lab coat. His room had a piano and herbariums, and full-spectrum lights and classical music always playing softly on the stereo. Every student in his classes was required to read the entire NYTimes every day. He always told us about how he had taught in every possible kind of school-- private, public, big, small, boarding, Quaker, catholic, Jewish, hippie, suburban, inner city, middle of nowhere--and that that was how he learned how to teach. And he was damn good. I got a 4/5 on the AP bio exam without memorizing a single thing. I don't even remember taking a single test in his class, just drinking tea and dissecting squid and talking about evolution and the anatomy of the eye. He came to my school during my sophomore year and after my senior year his "contract was not renewed." The administration always thought he was kinda unconventional.

The other teacher, Mr. DallaGrana, taught recent American history, global issues, and American political systems. Except for the survey intro to American history class, all the classes he taught he designed himself. "Global Issues" was devoted to the influence of one country's history on another, with special emphasis on the history of apartheid and democracy in South Africa. DallaGrana organized charity 5K run/walks, took students on trips abroad (even took my brother to South Africa junior year), was an ultra-marathon runner, and lived a block away from school with his wife and kids. He was and is still an institution at the school---took a bunch of kids to Obama's inauguration this fall. He was also a peace corps volunteer in the 70s in Lesotho, and goes back to the village where he lived EVERY YEAR! He did a 1 year Fulbright exchange a few years ago, where a South African teacher brought her family to live in his house and teach in his classroom and he took his family to live in her house and teach in her classroom. The guy is completely committed to TWO communities on opposite sides of the earth---and for most of the time he was doing it the internet didn't even exist.

They really both sound wonderful and raise questions about what it means to be a teacher rooted in place. I originally thought teaching was attractive as a profession because it would facilitate world-travel, but it is becoming clearer to me how central tradition and culture are in schools and how being a part of that takes physical presence. There is a "this is how we do it" feel in schools that I'm not sure pervades in other institutions and it takes a while to learn that, become part of that, and then shape it in some way. I don't know which teacher (#1 or #2) I aspire to be, but I'm thankful there is more than one way to be good at this job.

Great Read

2009-04-13T22:37:00.000-07:00

In three days flat I read A Changed Man by Francine Prose. The thing I like about it is that it raises questions students ask themselves (Can people really change? Can you help another person change or does change come from within? Where does hate come from? Should we forgive people who do bad things? Should we forgive ourselves?) in well-written, digestible language.

For example, read this passage between Vincent--the ex- neo-Nazi turned NGO worker-- and Danny, the teenager at whose house Vincent stays while transitioning from his past.

"Wait a minute," says Danny. "Back up. Let me get this straight. Are you saying that Hitler killed six million Jews because he was gay?"

Vincent taps the side of his head and lets his jaw go slack. "Excuse me? Did I say that? That's your conclusion, my man. Personally, I don't care what the guy did behind closed doors. I don't even want to think about what Hitler did or didn't do. In bed. My point was something else. My point was: all these guys I used to hang with...you couldn't even bring it up. They'd kick your ass if you hinted that Hitler was a little light in the loafers. Because they dug Hitler and hated fags. They couldn't handle the contradictions. That was their number-one problem. They couldn't deal with the gray areas. They couldn't get beyond the point where everything has to be black or white, one way or the other." (165)

Well said, my man. I don't mean to suggest that the language is always gentle or even student appropriate (although that is a whole different blog post in its self) but it is concise, accurate, and convincing, especially for the characters involved. All good literature raises meaningful questions about the world, but diction deeply affects how much those questions resonate with students. Books like The Catcher in the Rye --which still brings up good questions for me, even on my eighth read--sends students to look up words like "highball" and "galoshes." A Changed Man tackles similar questions but with the the zing of fresh language. Bravo Mrs. Prose.

Quality Education

2009-04-04T14:48:00.000-07:00

Last week over spring break I took a few days of my vacation to visit schools in the Seattle area. At Seattle Academy of the Arts and Sciences (SAAS) and University Prep I took campus tours, met with department heads, observed the use of technology in the classroom and chatted with students.

The most shocking revelation of these visits was that two prep schools could have such different philosophies about what a quality education looks like. You ask someone what makes a good piece of pizza and they might mention the crust’s thickness, the variety of toppings, or the amount of cheese. But what makes a quality education? The number of variables alone is staggering (class sizes, commitment to the arts, homework load etc.). On top of that, you aren’t working with mushrooms and pepperoni—these are people filling your classroom who each have their own ideas of how education should be. How should the school order its priorities? The two schools I saw answered this question differently and therefore have very different school cultures.

SAAS (where I attended 7th and 8th grade in the mid-nineties) is expanding like a cherry blossom mid-March. The student body has grown to nearly 600 students and plans for a new building are in the works. The students were sociable and I interrupted a girl in her biology lesson (she was reading a poetry blog on-line while her testing experiment ran) and we ended up discussing her independent poetry study. She meets twice a week with a teacher she selected to discuss her poetry and reflections: a neat arrangement that came about because she came up short of one English credit. I like that both school and teacher would accommodate her this way. I like that she had been on Semester at Sea. I liked how little prompting it took to coax this girl into talking to a foreign teacher about her passions. In almost every classroom I poked my head into (visual art, French, Algebra, choir, English) I saw students pursuing their interests and taking a risk in front of their peers, be it by reading an essay aloud in English or opening their mouths to sing in choir.

Not everything worked perfectly. I observed some classes where students were supposed to be working independently but cruised Facebook instead, and one where the teacher helped one student while the rest chatted about an upcoming senior trip to Alaska. I saw a student sleeping on his break and heard one complain about overly-committing to lacrosse (“Dude, it’s like a part-time job!”). But in general, I had a sense that the school is committed to teaching the whole child--mind, body, soul--and providing opportunities for students to take risks, thereby discovering the wealth of strength inside themselves.

University Prep is a slightly smaller school (485 students) with breathtaking facilities that let in a lot of natural light. I arrived near the end of the day so I didn’t get to see class in action, but a discussion with the English department head clearly outlined the focus of the school. He pointed out that the school’s name is “University Prep” (perhaps as opposed to artistic prep?) and that they deliver exactly what they promise—preparation for a 4-year university. The required four-years of English culminates in a 5000 word essay on a topic of the student’s choosing (SAAS sends seniors to intern at the non-profit of their choosing) and I have no doubt that the U-prep student can write an excellent persuasive essay. The day I visited the school had suspended class for a music day, and an outdoor trip was planned for the Olympic peninsula so the school certainly doesn't limit its self to academics alone. But I did come away with the sense that the school is primarily focused on providing an academic environment that will prepare students for the challenges they will face in college.

The schools are different, and I wouldn’t want them to be the same. Some students excel more in the structured environment of U-Prep, some thrive on the artistic opportunities at SAAS. Both schools have students that struggle as well. I think the larger lesson here is that each school has its own culture and that students (and teachers!) should be at the school whose idea of a quality education matches their own.

The Brain and creativity

2009-03-14T01:53:00.000-07:00

I showed this video to my freshman class before we started a poetry unit. They enjoyed Taylor's storytelling and were shocked by her picture at the end. The 18 minute clip serves as a nice reference point for us now when discussing where poetry comes from, how to foster creativity, and what a grounded "sense of self" is in our writing.

You can’t skip my class

2009-03-14T01:22:00.000-07:00

Something is going right in my freshman English class. It feels amazing. I look forward to teaching all three sections whenever they meet, which is rare for me the week before Spring break vacation.

What is working:
1. We spent time building a class culture. We used the first two weeks of the quarter to do activities that addressed the essential question of the course (who am I and how does voice shape my identity?) and students bonded. The payoff is better peer-feedback amongst students and more laughter in the classroom.

2. More large projects. Student feedback from last semester suggested that they prefer fewer large assignments over nightly assignments that count for a lot. Now they have Big Great Works, Little Great Works, and Process works which are the nightly assignments worth 5 points. The assignments build on one another, so after around seven Process works of writing different kinds of poetry, for example, they have a BGW of polishing three poems and submitting those with a reflection. They sense there is a purpose to the homework while it allows a little more space to play and fail (you can goof up your process works and still rock your BGW grades).

3. I spend more time planning class than I do grading. Last year I stayed up late to turn back papers the day after I received them. Now I may turn papers back two classes later, but I know class will be engaging (and I am well-rested!).

4. Start every class with them. Students can they read their free-choice paper to a neighbor, share a story of what they did after school yesterday, or write an overheard line of poetry on the board-- anything works. I just try to start class with something from them so we are all invested together. It’s a little scarier than starting with my example story or model-able essay; it requires adaptability and thinking on my feet. Their creation doesn’t always link seamlessly to the lesson of the day, but it adds an element of surprise for both of us that keeps things fresh.

A mentor told me that class should feel like there is some kind of plan, but anything can happen. I like that.

One strange result of this spontaneous, student-started class is that it makes it unpleasant to re-hash past classes with students who missed class for sports or illness. Last year I could easily upload my lesson plan to the website or email them what they missed because it was the same in every class: fueled by me. But now rehashing class is like dissecting a joke for someone who wasn’t listening. What is there to say? You had to be there.

Boundaries

2009-03-01T10:14:00.000-08:00

“How old are you anyway?”
“You’re so pretty, we just think you should wear a little make up.”
“Do you have a boyfriend? Why aren’t you married?”
“What are you wearing? We’ll take you on a shopping spree this weekend.”

Are these the comments of innocent toddlers still learning not to eat off a dinner guests’ plate? No, these are the voices of seventeen-year-olds who, last weekend after an eight-hour speech tournament, felt we had grown close enough to discuss issues such as my face, my clothes, and my marital status.
And it’s cool; I know they are still learning boundaries. I know it’s silly to get offended by these comments and ridiculous to lash back. But seriously—what do you say to that?

I asked my office-mate (a teacher renowned for her positive student relationships) what to make of this kind of uncomfortable commentary and she topped me by a mile. She recounted the story of her first year teaching when a young boy walked up to her desk and said, “Wow, you are so old! Do you still make love to your husband?”
She dropped her jaw at his insolence. “WHAT!?”
“Oh!” He looked perplexed, “Did I cross a boundary?”

The answer was obviously yes. However, what isn’t as clear is if a) the student meant to be hurtful or b) the student thinks his teachers are heartless aliens whose sensitivities were removed at birth.
Clearly students work harder for teachers they like, and friendships with students makes class more enjoyable for me. But it seems unavoidable that this closeness lead to some awkward moments where you have to look down at your goodwill sweater, take a deep breath, and just smile at the absurdity.

Teacherly Goals for S'09

2009-02-01T23:45:00.001-08:00

--Visit lots of other teacher’s classes
--Dare to have a discussion with students about the relativism of grades when they have grades in their hands (oh the potential wrath!)
--Give students more time to think and reflect before they respond.
--Spend more time in class reading aloud, reading silently, and practicing various reading skills.
--Use technology mindfully in my classroom and at home.
--Accept the fact that I am already the best teacher I can be.

This last one deserves some explanation. I am reading a book called Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das and it posits an idea I find surprising: give up hope. You are already the best manifestation of yourself you can become. Stop trying to be something you aren’t; in this moment you don’t have thirty years of teaching experience so don’t waste energy wishing you did—just be the teacher you are in the moment you are in. The best teaching I have observed is simply an extension of the teacher’s personality. Great teachers share their whole selves with the students, not just a watered down phony version. I aim for that this semester.

What I learned from The “Apple” Challenge

2009-01-28T00:24:00.000-08:00

I wrote four pages mulling over this topic but they read with a rather nasty tone, so I have condensed my thoughts to these four main, hopefully non passive-aggressive, points.

1. Collaborating with a for-profit business about curriculum was an interesting experience. I don’t particularly recommend it simply because in education teachers already have multiple bosses (students, department heads, school principals, parents etc.) and they don’t need another one who a) has interests independent of serving students as well as possible and b) is not present to adjust their demands when what they ask for is unreasonable. The next time Apple Inc. invites me to try their experiment, I will do it on my own timeline or I will say no thanks.

2. Collaborating with other teachers across disciplines is a wonderful professional development opportunity. However, it doesn’t make sense to engage in this illuminating yet time-consuming process unless you have the same students who will make connections between the thread started in Biology class and continued in English class. The block schedule at my school minimizes the chances of overlap and makes me question if this system is really the best schedule for student learning.

3. We need teachers. (What a relief!). Part of the Challenge Based learning model appears to suggest that teachers need to stop lesson planning so much and get out of the way. “Hand over the reigns to students,” CBL suggests, “and they’ll teach themselves!”. I was optimistic about this at first but discovered that the reality is that no, they won’t. It isn’t because of a lack of drive; I think it’s probably just a frontal lobe that needs to grow. Freshman aren’t there yet: they still need us to point them in the right direction, show them some cool examples they couldn’t find on their own, teach them the basics, and then invite them to impress us. Otherwise they sit there staring at one another for days.

4. Group work rocks. Students pay more attention to one another than they do to anything else and group work can steer that energy toward self-reflection. One student reflected after the whole project debacle came to an end:

During the course of the past three weeks or so, I had to overcome a lot, personally. It was very hard for me to keep my cool when other people in my group weren't cooperating, or if we were having communication problems. It was hard for me to be able to not take all the work myself, but to be able to trust the other people in our group to do some work as well. I was personally able to overcome this when people in our group really showed an interest in the project and wanted to help out, which was when I was able to hand over some responsibility to them.

That’s neat. So she learned more about herself than she did about English class content. Am I satisfied with that as a teacher? No.

In closing, I must say that this project left me with a lot of questions and one that even related to my identity as a teacher: How can I strike a balance between content-driven classes and experiential learning? Why do I so enjoy leaping at the risky, uncertain, potentially disastrous projects instead of just using my office-mates lesson plans that are tried and true? If nothing else happens in my classroom, what is the one thing I can’t do without? The creation of a class culture? The ability to use discussion techniques? The development of an appreciation for poetry? The proper use of a hyphen?

Each teacher answers these questions for themselves and it will take me a few more years before I am confident in my own responses.

To my students who failed this semester: I love you

2009-01-14T18:49:00.000-08:00

So my grade book screams “D” and you earned it.
But in my book of life your name shouts “A” and you should know it.

I like you.
I believe in you.
Your simple being astounds me.

If only you knew how highly I esteem you, the eternal light inside you, the potential curled in your belly like a dormant walnut inside a shell awaiting his nutcracker, then you would not pout now. I see your own hand around the cracker’s handle some day, its teeth biting for grip, digging in to squeeze yourself out.

You are so much bigger than this little F attempting to shrink you. Don’t buy this crap.

And believe me, if I could get over the fear of being fired or called “ weak” or “easy,” if my ego could take the hit, than I would write you an “A” and stamp it loudly on the paper you never turned in because I love you like I love every human being and in you I only see rainbows.

Best of luck,

--Ms. D

I wrote this little poem/letter after a lunch conversation with one of my favorite colleagues. We are grading final papers and it is an incredible drain on our energy. Why is it so hard to spend hours grading? Because we have to focus on telling students what they did wrong rather than what they did right, justifying our "B" on their paper with a red circle here, a critical comment there. I fear they will misinterpret my comments on their papers for my assessment of their person, which makes me feel guilty for each red mark on the page, like I'm hurting a beloved with my pen. I know it sounds overly-self important to think my comments affect students that much, but I do worry about it. I wish I could just write "I love you!" on every paper, and give a little feedback about their work and leave it at that. What a bleeding heart right!? What to do what to do.

The Edible Schoolyard

2008-12-05T00:43:00.000-08:00

After a coffee-filled weekend at the Apple headquarters in Cupertino, CA, I went to visit my friend Ben who helps run a school garden program at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkley. This program is so neat and so needed! It was Saturday morning so I didn’t get to see students in the space, but it takes little imagination to see how such a well-run garden provides ample learning opportunities.

It was a volunteer workday and I got to help prepare lunch for the weeders and pruners. Ellen was in charge of the kitchen that day—an efficient woman who left her catering business in NY to fill in for the kitchen head here on sabbatical. “I’m interested in more school-garden programs,” she said while stirring lentils with her right hand and reaching for the salt with her left. “The kids go home after eating here and tell their parents ‘we are supposed to be cooking our own food. We are supposed to eat at the table as a family.’”

The program serves sixth through eighth grades that visit the garden and kitchen four times a month. They learn kitchen skills like using a knife correctly and get to experiment with ingredients; last week they made frittata; next week might be curry.

Ben, who works mainly in the garden, told me the space provides a needed outlet for students from different cultures to share their expertise. MLK middle school receives all of the ESL students from the district and its diverse student body has a wealth of experience related to cooking and gardening. Just last week while they separated barley wheat from its shaft, a quiet boy from Nepal said, “I’ve done this before.” Ben asked for tips on technique and the student taught them all how to toss the grain in the air, allowing the wind to blow the shaft away while the grain lands back in your bowl. If the garden hadn’t been there, this cultural exchange would have been unlikely.

“That’s why we try and plant a lot of grains from other countries with similar climates,” Ben said. The sixth graders start with the grains, seventh graders tend vegetables, and eighth graders focus on kitchen skills. More info at edibleschoolyard.org

Challenge-Based Learning (CBL)

2008-11-23T20:24:00.000-08:00

I went to a conference held by Apple computers about challenge-based learning. The concept is simple: creativity and enthusiasm thrive on challenge. Think of the popular tv show Iron Chef: you get an egg, cottage cheese, an ice-cream cone and thirty minutes to produce something amazing--now go! Educationally, this is effective because students feel they are breaking ground and creating something new rather than "discovering" the quadratic equation for the billionth time or writing a research paper that could easily be copy and pasted from the internet.

So often teachers have taken the challenge upon themselves--engage students in my subject and allow their creativity to shine-- by create amazing projects for students to carry out. That is great, seriously, and that is pretty much all I do. (For example, I might assign students to make an imovie about a scene from a Shakespeare play we just read, or memorize a poem of their choice and present it to their peers.) But isn't making up the project the funnest part? Actually carrying out the project is important, but it is like running the football play after the coach drew it on a clipboard--the strategizing and thinking has been done.

Challenge-based learning says don't steal the kids thunder by over-managing. Do less arranging. Create a good challenge and the kids will bite.

Some example challenges might be:
--Increase appreciation of poetry on your school's campus.
--Decrease paper waste in your library's printer.
--Identify discrimination in your life and address it in some way (after we read "The Merchant of Venice" as a class).

It is hard to catch yourself as a teacher when you are over-scaffolding, but it can be done.

Making Yourself Write

2008-11-15T17:51:00.000-08:00

Our department head gave the English teachers an assignment. He gave us a month to write one page about something related to teaching. We hemmed, we hawed, we asked for extensions and then we produced something. I had forgotten how scary the blank page can be and how difficult it is to focus on anything else once I start to write --it's like the itch to call a new crush every time I open my laptop and see the doc sitting there. This piece (probably too long for a blog post but oh well) is what I wrote. It reminded me that editing is a valuable skill I have yet to teach students this year and that doing assignments along with students builds empathy. Enjoy!

Surf Board Rail or Grading Pen?
I sit on a Hawaiian beach scratching sand out of my hair. Some of the white coral bits wedge under my nails, others sprinkle down onto the stack of papers below. Why am I holding a grading pen and wearing a bikini? If you write regularly (lets say five hundred words a week) your writing improves. But I’m not convinced getting teacher feedback improves writing. So why does this teacher spend her weekends writing feedback? When students turn in papers, what if ninety percent of the “learning” happened in the act of writing? Why do teachers work so much outside of the office for forty grand a year? Shouldn't I hold a surfboard rail in this cupped palm rather than a grading pen? I look up at my board whimpering in the car for another session and then out at Chun's, the break.

The time is now: swells, stirred by mid-ocean storms lump along for thousands of miles merging and smoothing to become the perfect walls of water we have the good fortune to ride. Waves are a gift, especially on the north shore in November before the monster swells come with their droves of pros and deathly drops which scare even the most passionate novices like myself away. I am new to the ocean but have good balance on the board and surfed diamond head in 5 foot waves. I look down at the chicken scratch across Nick’s paper and wonder if he will see anything but red ink.

“Ms. Davis, what is up with Holden Caulfield? I mean, why can't he just go back to school and grow up?” The freshmen in my high school class are tired from P.E. and would like some easy answers.
“Well, what does it mean to grow up?” I ask, having learned that answering their questions with my own opinion is not the point of this discussion. (When I do slip and go off on a tangent, I feel dirty and empty afterwards, like I just wolfed down an entire cheese cake and looked up to see a room of hungry people who didn’t get any.) “I mean, are you grown ups?”
“…We’re teenagers.”
“Ok, am I grown up?” This is a foolish question. I’m not sure if I actually want to hear the answer. They will say this is Ms. Davis the English teacher, the grade giver, the project assigner. She does not feel comfortable wearing revealing necklines to work and instead hides her shoulders under bulky cardigans; bobby pins cinch her tight bun in place. She has health insurance and no family and after 3:30 every day she evaporates. On Punahou school grounds she exists either in a classroom or in her overly air-conditioned office that requires thermal socks and an extra sweater. In fact, she probably sleeps in that ice box, huddled over our papers late into the night, joking to herself about the misuse of the comma. Can the independent clause stand alone? Does a bear shit in the woods?

That is not entirely fair. Ms. Davis also loves being around words and students and has a deep, delicious awe for her peers. She would like to ditch her class and attend Mrs. Dare's, Mr. Dyke's, Mrs. Cheever's, Mr. Moore's. She wants to slip silently into thier back rows. She would slide a paper from the recycling and write frantically, grasping wildly at the words floating around the room: a child with a gaping butterfly net. She would bring a tape recorder, some sticky tape, and a photographic memory to duplicate their moments as her own. She would wedge myself between the students and jot notes to herself: this teacher has no idea how brilliant she is; this teacher doesn’t know his assignments invoke creativity; this teacher hasn’t heard English is now Jacob’s favorite class and he never finished a book until now. Her notebook would bulge with observations of them and she would steal and steal and steal; in ten years with some luck, she might be able to fill their shoes.

Twelve hours after leaving for work, I step back inside Poki Palace apartment number eight and unclasp my Steve Maddens. In classic Mr. Roger’s style, I check the mail while peeling off worktop, polyester pants, and the only bra I own, purchased solely for this job. I happily don men’s board shorts and a tank top. I like my hair in a messy bun. This is Laura the aspiring surfer, the nose-picker, the one who hates to wash dishes and loves to play with dryer lint. This is the girl who is slowly murdering an orchid plant by parching it to death through neglect and who hasn’t seriously watched television since middle school. She is happiest in the water. This is the Laura that pees in her friends swimming pools because she is too lazy to get out, the Laura who never puts the toilet seat down, the one that never remembers to call her grandmother, and who feels best about her Halloween outfit when it involves some kind of cape.

Students are uncomfortable with Laura when she does swim to the surface. I watched an upperclassman loitering in the English building last week as he danced a choreographed routine for a girlfriend. She clapped along to the beat. I liked the coordinated movements and, standing half in the teacher’s lounge and halfway out, tried to follow along. Right left stomp, elbow elbow hip and tuuuuuurn. My fingers snapped, my booty shook. The student I had been talking with dropped her mouth open and doubled over with laughter. When hands finally dropped away from her shocked face she said, “Ms. Davis, please don’t ever do that again.”

Is it necessary to morph between Laura and Ms. Davis? Aren’t some teachers just one person before and after work? Isn’t that more honest and clear for students? Are you born a teacher or do you become one? How do the master teachers balance in their lives?

I think about these things while scratching my sandy scalp on the beach. I look up from the stack of papers again to watch a peach-colored sunset fade over the ocean as the last dogged surfers drag themselves away from their watery lover to head home. I could be jealous of them, but I’m not. Liar. Well, I am jealous, but I also crave balance. True. I love writing and students and surfing and sea. I also assume there is time in old age to play and worry a lot about being useful now. Thoughts of school are already creeping into my mind—fear about how an unplanned lesson will fail, thrill at the possibility Tiare making headway on our essential course questions: Who am I and how does language shape my identity? What is this world like and how should I choose to live in it? Maybe tomorrow Kamden will recite his poem. Maybe Jamie will read a book she likes. I trot back to my Toyota, shove in graded papers beside surf board and leash, flip on the lights, and head school-ward with the radio blasting.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

2008-10-24T18:48:00.000-07:00

I decided to change the header on this blog. Last year it was "Notes of a 21st century teacher on what students dig." This year, at the same school, I want to reflect more on how this profession affects my daily life, happiness, and well-being. The profession is infamous for burning out even the most enthusiastic young bucks--can I hack it long-term in this line of work? (dun dun dun dun!)

Last week the teacher's bathroom was in-use so I ran down to the student one in the basement. Sitting quietly in my stall and trying to decipher some light graffiti about who Katie loves, I inadvertently eavesdropped on two girls talking.
"I don't know exactly what I want to be, but I want to make a lot of money and do something interesting," said Analise, a student of mine.
"You could be a teacher," offered unidentified girl #2.
"No, they don't make any money. They just take a lot of shit from students and they have no life."

I smiled silently on the pot. I surf on the weekends and manage to cook most nights, but I rarely have time to exercise because grading each night usually consumes the evening. Just last night a group of friends went out for sushi and I had to bail because of a date with a stack of essays: Analise has a point.

"My ADD is getting better but my acne is getting worse, so I might bail on psychiatrist and go with dermatologist instead," Analise added without a hint of sarcasm and moved to wash her hands. But how much money is 'a lot'? I wanted to whisper over the bathroom stall door. "And in what other profession can you hang out with cool teenagers that say things like that?"

Walking home from school yesterday (my five minutes of prime calling-the-mainland time) I texted my friend Jen in Seattle who just finished a masters in teaching at UCLA. She has several years of teaching experience under her belt. I complained about my work-load, my lack of sleep, and my mental exhaustion.
Her reply came swiftly: YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
If a gross lack of balance between personal and school life is the standard in this profession then we are all doing something terribly wrong.

My job is strange: how do you teach love?

2008-10-24T17:54:00.000-07:00

If my English teacher-responsibilities consisted of teaching only grammar, communication skills, and reading skills, I could do this. Even throw on thinking skills and I still might have a chance at success. But the ultimate goal is not only to teach the ability to read; ideally, good English teachers foster a love of words, too. Not only do we hope they can link coherent sentences together, but we want them to value the beauty of a well-constructed sentence. How do you insure that they love the process? My brain dead-ends on this thought train so I'm going to write it down in hopes of making a right turn.

Why do I have this job of fostering love in the first place? Don't most small children like stories? Why don't they enjoy reading in high school? A myriad of reasons erupt, mostly concerning past word-related trauma. Maybe in seventh grade Mr. Kohan forced them to read a boring book and the interest died. Maybe Mrs. Darin prescribed books for adults to her middle-schoolers, causing defeat and apathy: "I just don't GET it!" "Why do we have to read this?" Maybe someone told them what to read, when to finish it, and an essay topic about some obscure corner of the book that didn't relate to them. (I think we all survived this though, and many still love to read.)

Try increasing the options of choice. Let them read and write whatever they want and then they will become lifelong readers. Maybe, but then what happens to quality? If you ask a fourteen-year-old to read any book they want the will read Harry Potter Series and Twilight—both gripping books but not a lot to discuss there.

("Did you like it."
"Yeah! That ruled!
"I thought so too. I read it in, like, three days."
"Dude, Ms. Davis is the coolest for letting us read this for class."
"Yeah, but now what will we do for the rest of the semester?"
"Lets read some Nancy Drew."
"No way, I finished those in eighth grade."
"Ms. Davis doesn’t know that."
"You're right…")

So what is wrong with that? Maybe it will fuel a little love for words on the page which can bump up to words written by James Joyce and Kiran Desai down the road. The two things I learned best so far in my short time on earth (ceramics and Spanish) I learned over a long period of time through immersion. It took submerging myself in Chile for a year with weekly Spanish lessons to drill those verbs into my brain. No one else forced me, and there weren't any time limits. My love for learning languages is still in tact.

But this is a college preparatory school and students should be pushed and work hard.

Well. Now we get to a fundamental problem with the educational system that may ultimately be my biggest bone to pick with teaching. I am not convinced that humans learn best under pressure, but the modern-day school arrangement (classes over the size of 12, grades, traditional academic papers) force us to teach this way. I want to ponder this question and reflect more at length and write for days about it...
...time for class!

Tell them your teen-stories

2008-10-01T01:51:00.000-07:00

One of Annie Lamott’s favorite authors once wrote that there are three stories she uses whenever she wants someone to fall in love with her: one around-the-world sailing trip, one cooking fiasco, and one lover’s quarrel that ended well. Somehow that makes sense to me--we tell stories with a purpose. Each personal story emphasizes a flattering side of yourself: the daring, the funny, the bold, the traveler, the voice of reason in a world of chaos.—all the things we wish we were 100% of the time but aren’t.

Last year I tried to tell some personal stories about living in Chile to freshman. Oh look at me, aren’t I the cool teacher taking time out of class to share a little slice of my personal world with you? Isn’t this fun? Aren’t you lucky to get to know me? Oh please Ms. Davis tell us more about lollygagging across the Chilean countryside!

Well. Their eyes glazed over a bit and some started packing up bookbags pre-maturely. Besides feeling the wounding blow to my ego, I was perplexed: over pizza and beer my peers generally enjoy this particular pack of backpacking adventures—why didn’t it resonate for teens?

It is easy to forget that most teens go home every weekend, hang out around their houses or the mall, watch videos on youtube, go to school dances, and sleep. Travel stories of complete freedom and possibility can be difficult to relate to, hence the droopy eyes. Instead, tell them about yourself when you were their age and your plights were more similar to their own.

(This is dorkey, I admit) but I made a brainstorm of stories from when I was a young teen with morals or lessons attached so I can figure out when they might be useful. Some of them can be writing triggers. Some of them illustrate a point. They are not the same stories of bridge jumping and skinny-dipping that pepper so many of your adult stories; it is a different genera altogether. Try lots of stories about pets and trying to look cool but failing, and maybe even a first love if you can make it about acceptance and moving on rather than just smooching.

They listen differently to stories and remember them much longer.

So what was the best little drama of your life when you were 15?

Visit to Wahiawa Elementry

2008-09-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

Just before my school started up I visited a public elementary school where my friend Mr. Duffy teaches. The grounds were beautiful and the students goofy and engaged: everyone was ready to sprint to the water fountain and several girls wanted to hold my hand--so welcoming to visitors!

Mr. Duffy and I planned to coordinate letter-writing between his public school and my independent school to encourage literacy in the younger grades. What third grader wouldn't love to receive a letter with a story from a high-school pen pal? However now that he has his schedule handed to him and the realities of prepping for state testing have hit, there is no time for such projects.

I left enthused by the students who wanted to stay after school on a Friday and disenchanted with the system that so limits teacher planning and creativity.

The flow of teacher-speak

2008-09-12T19:24:00.000-07:00

I have committed to sitting in on a master teacher’s class for the semester to see if I can steal his moves. This term “master teacher” is obnoxious for many reasons, but I’m going to use it anyway because I don’t know what else to call people that have experience and charisma and student’s respect. In addition to these things, he also has a huge afro (which I find endearing) and a calmness in the classroom that I want to absorb like a sponge. So I go.
Some describe what Tim does as “magic” because he appears to make up things on the spot. However, the more I observe, it appears to be his train of thought and the transition from one concept to another that makes his teaching style so unique.
I know of 3 ways teachers appear to speak in class.

1. Lecture
“This is how you organize a paragraph” point A to B, B to C etc. I can be clear when I do this, but it is difficult to make entertaining and I sometimes bore myself as well as students by thinking I need to cover everything. What does it take to be a strong lecturer? Have personality and know your stuff? I’m not sure.

2. Storytelling
I just started giving myself license to share personal stories with my students. I brainstormed several stories that they would appreciate (stories about me when I was their age are usually the best to relate to) and now I use them as writing prompts and attention-getters; a way to ground the lesson in a tangible moment. Students tend to pay attention.

3. Giving instructions
“Ok, so what I want you to do is________.” I find myself doing this in class A LOT. This is an unwanted bi-product of student-focused, activity-based lesson plans: in order to set up the activity I spend time explaining what I want them to do. Often, while outlining the plan, I feel I am limiting their options and killing creativity rather than stoking the fires.

Tim talks a lot in class. His voice predominates the room 60-75% of the class time. Yet we are all engaged, all thinking, all on the edge of our seats. I feel exhausted from thinking so much by the end of the period. How does he engage us so much when we are just listening?

He interrelates the three ways of speaking in such a way that the listener jumps between hearing a personal story, getting a direction, and hearing snippets of lecture. For example today he put 20 poetry books on the ground and the plan was to ask students to page through them and find a poem that grabbed them. He would give them 30 minutes to do so and then they would come back into large group and share their favorite line found. Had I done it, this instruction would take 3 minutes and students would use 5 minutes to find something and be done with it. Task→assigned→ executed= we move on and wonder about the point of the activity.

Tim does not do this. He gives instructions in such a way that he doesn’t TELL you what to do, but rather makes you feel as though you are invited to participate. What is gained from each activity changes because of how he framed it.

He might say things like:
What I'm hoping to do is…
The kinds of books I have collected here are all poetry: some are more humorous like this one...
You can go outside if you trust you that you won’t get distracted.
Don’t hurt the books, the way I do, see how my pet bird chewed up the corner of this one? If not interested in one poem or one book of poems, pick up another.
If you read for a while and you get bored, try drawing an image that you see.
If you are reading for ten minutes and don’t find any poems you like, try sitting with one because you know how sometimes a song in your car is one you hate the first five times you hear it and then suddenly you’re like “man, that is a great song!” Poetry can grow on you like that too.
Does anyone have any questions?

Giving directions in this way the students appear to understand what it is that is asked of them. They all settle into the activity calmly and with purpose. No one needs to go to the bathroom or ask a question or be told again: small miracles.
Perhaps this post is more for me to process my observations, but in summary this observation raises new questions for me. What is my point and is a direct line actually the best way to say it? It may be clear, but is this the way that students process information? I'm starting to vary my style of speech in class.

Begin Again

2008-08-29T18:27:00.001-07:00

A new school year has begun. I like the cyclical nature of it-- the ceremony, the similar faces that grew defined during the summer months. Braces came off. Baby fat was lost. Some of them I have had as students before and still their new stature can be intimidating.

My goals for this year are a bit different than for summer school:

I will strive to make my thinking more transparent to my students. (i.e. verbalize it)
I hope to create assignments that allow students to surprise me.
I hope to utilize class time in such a way that students feel busy and directed most of the time.
I want students to talk more.

The Ultimate Tool to Better Thinking

2008-08-15T19:12:00.000-07:00

There is a non-profit called "The Foundation for Critical Thinking" whose purpose is to help people think better. This astounds me. The quantity of interesting and relevant information on this site boggles the mind. It is all free/ very cheap and packed full of examples and activities that allow readers to sharpen their critical thinking skills. The mind is a wily beast and this group believes that with practice and guidance, you can train it to think more rationally, deeply, and critically.

I was a student (like you) for 18 years of my life before I became a teacher and as I read through this site I see flashes of what Dr. Lightfoot and Mr. Dolger were trying to do. Is more extensive than what these teachers were able to do with limited time and therefore completes the task more thoroughly: Digest it in small pieces.

One critical thinking idea from the "How to study and learn" section:

Idea # 12: Seek to find the key concept of the course during the first couple of class meetings. For example, in a Biology course, try explaining what biology is in your own words? Then relate that definition to each segment of what you learn afterward. Fundamental ideas are the basis for all others.

It took me two years of studying the vague major of "Politics" at Whitman College before I discovered what is was exactly we studied. Politics is the study of power: how humans get it, retain it, and wield it over one another. Writing is about the skill of artful and clear communication in written form.

What is English as a subject?

English is about skill and appreciation of beauty of words (reading, writing, listening) which provide a window into human ethics (how we should behave) and psychology (how we think).

Some other subjects summarized by the Critical Thinking folks:

Mathematics as learning to think quantitatively

Economics as the study of “who gets what, when, & how”

Algebra as arithmetic with unknowns

Sociology as the study of human conformity to group norms

Anthropology as the physical and historical study of humans in light of their evolution from non-cultural into cultural animals

Physics as the study of mass and energy and their interaction

Chemistry as the study of elementary substances & the manner in which they react with each other

Philosophy as the study of ultimate questions with a view to living an examined life

Biochemistry as the chemistry of life processes in plants & animals

Science as the attempt to learn through quantifiable observations and controlled experimentation

Theology as the study of theories of spiritual reality

Ethics as the study of principles to be used in contributing to the good of, & avoiding unnecessary harm to, humans and other sentient creatures

Art as the application of skill and judgment to matters of taste and beauty (as in poetry, music, painting, dance, drama, sculpture, or architecture)

Professions as ways of earning a living through the skilled and artful use of knowledge in everyday life

Check out this site! www.criticalthinking.org

Teachers as tango students

2008-07-10T19:47:00.000-07:00

Teaching summer school rocks. We have 3.5 hours a day with 14 students, one class only. We have three larger projects underway, meaning we have reached that nice part of the semester after the expectations and basic skills are established when students can direct most of their own learning. With the first time in months to have nights free of take-home work, I signed up for a nightly tango class.

My irrational fear of high heels is tantamount to my paranoia of finding tarantulas between bed sheets and looking down to see my legs engulfed between python jaws. Three extra inches sends me through the clouds to a whopping 6'1 and I sense the air is thinner up there. However, luck has it that the leader of my tango class is a master teacher. George Garcia has been teaching tango for 25 years and is used to transforming wobbly-legged women into confident strutters.

Watching his teaching style convinces me that teaching is as much a skill of human interaction and communication as it is about mastery of your subject. George is a great dancer, obviously, but what makes him a master teacher is that he can break down his skill into digestible pieces and use words to explain them to other people. For example, he makes analogies that relate dance to familiar topics: the forward walk becomes a panther stalking its prey, each type of step is a different flavor of ice-cream, the rhythm of the beat is an escalator and you are trying to board on the right foot.

Still, after the second night of class, I was a bit disheartened. I had knocked knees with several partners, blundering into them as they tried to glide me. Each had offered suggestions and tips, which I could not translate into progress. I didn’t hear the rhythm of the music and I was cold. The elegant high heels purchased especially for the occasion had rubbed baby blisters into pussing red wounds; I expected to look down and see blood.

George spotted me as I sat down and asked me to dance. This was my chance to really learn something so I rallied and met him on the dance floor. We assumed the embrace and he stopped right away to make an adjustment. Set up, adjust. Set up, adjust. We took our first step. Stop. Adjust. Baby steps. Embarrassment crept up my spine but he was unfrazleable. I think I stepped on his foot three times in a row and he focused on the task at hand.
"Ok now, you lost contact here on the lower arm. How can you pull that back in?" He never raised his voice above a croon. When I stepped correctly he celebrated.
"Yesssssss, you see how fun that is?" I looked down after assuming I had lost the beat and our heels were perfectly matched up.
"Yes, I see now."
"That was good. Now, what did we get? We got more connection in the torso…" he paused to review what went right and encourage me with positive feedback. On the next dance he tried some harder moves. More errors. More breaking it down. More positive feedback. I improved a little and my self-confidence was still in tact as the last song faded out, excited to tackle it again the next day.
I'm stunned that even though I can break down every teacher-y thing he did it still impacted my learning so much. As a teacher, I so easily forget that students care what I think about them and if I intimidate them, scold them, or humiliate them I impede learning. Didn't we all spend more time in high school trying not to look dumb than actually trying to learn? I don't understand how some people love coaches that yell at them as they attempt backward flips and pole-vault jumps. Or maybe that is just a different style of learner that performs well under pressure?

I see other teachers around campus doing their summer graduate schoolwork and they look incredibly happy to be studying away. It seems a relief to teachers to get to be on someone else's carefully arranged plan for awhile; to be the follower instead of the lead.

Synapses ready? Fire!

2008-07-10T18:34:00.000-07:00

I'm reading a book called Teaching with the Brain in Mind by Eric Jensen. Stale as the raisin-bran that struggles to stay fresh in our Hawaiian heat, this book is still worth my time just because it is so applicable to teaching. I'm clearly not lapping it up since the bookmark lies a meager 43 pages in, nor do I grok much of the neurology described (why can't they make a layout and choose images based on the research they have done about how brains digest information? Arg.) However, the book has affected some change in my classroom.

First, I started playing music in the classroom between breaks that sets the desired tone for the lesson. This is really easy using Pandora.com, an online radio-station that plays any genre of music you invent. In the morning when I want them awake and focused, I play an upbeat latin-music station. During the first break before we do a close-reading of a text, a Mozart-centered station pops on. They seem to appreciate the added stimuli--when I forget to hit play they say "why don't we have music today?". In theory, it is priming neural pathways to increase the speed, sequence, and strength of the connections they will make about poetry.

I change what is on the walls about once a week because change is stimuli for the brain.
I am careful to eliminate threat (verbal abuse, mockery etc.) because a scared brain is not absorbing anything.

According to the brain book, enrichment is all about challenge and feedback. Allowing students to choose their own books for class should insure that they read at the level challenging for them. Right now we are in the process of choosing free-choice books that students will read individually and write about on their blogs. This is instead of reading the Odyssey as a class (the debate is still open as to the validity of this, but lets just wait and see). Today we visited a junior-filled composition class to hear about their book recommendations. These students are reading such interesting books! just a few of the suggestions were Faster than the Speed of Light by Joao Magueijo, Eragon by Christopher Paolini and 1984 by George Orwell, This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff, and The Atonement Child by Francine Rivers. Just hearing these students do a Reading-Rainbow-style plug for books raised my confidence in students today.

So in an ideal world, challenge comes via the free-choice book, and feedback comes via blog when they write about what they are reading.

Finally, one last change regarding feedback. In college, I recall slipping away excitedly to read the feedback on my papers (dork!) as soon as I got them. But not everyone does that, and not all comments make sense, even if you do manage to read the teacher's terrible handwriting. Lots of students make similar mistakes, and having them corrected in relation to work they have recently done apparently makes a different. So lately when I return a batch of papers I choose 2 issues that came up for almost everyone. Perhaps it was weak verb usage. Perhaps they mis-punctuated dialogue. I do a mini-lesson the day I return their papers and it seems to sink in.

Edutech conference models toys, not teaching

2008-06-20T17:36:00.000-07:00

I left the Kamehameha education-technology conference last week both disheartened and unaffected. There were sessions on all the latest technology toys (twitter, blogs, del.icio.us, skype, etc.) that might have wowed a newbie, but most teachers there had at least tinkered with them. In fact, I think many teachers there could have given the talks they paid to see. The reality is that once you tap into the edutech world, conceptualize student-directed learning, and become fluent in moodle and blog navigation, it takes little upkeep to stay abreast of the multiplying resources. Presenters and conference organizers hear me: we know about the toys.

What we need are models of classroom environments that use technologies to empower students and promote self-directed learning.

On of the presenters showed the image below as an example of slapping technology onto the current model of education. Note how the teacher is at the front of the room, still presumed to have all the control and correct answers stashed away behind her desk. Notice the glazed stares, the distracted looks at the laptop screens, and the fact that the students are seated (dormant) while the teacher stands (active).

This photo summarizes my experience at this conference.

If the conference hoped to promote teacher-collaboration, why didn't we tackle a problem, make a lesson plan, or create a resource with our fellow conference attendees? Instead we sat awkwardly at lunch tables, attempted "what have you learned so far?" conversations.

If web 2.0 technology makes everyone a publisher, presenter, and photographer, why weren't participants asked to document something from their own classrooms and present them to our colleagues?

If these tools' strength is that they empower the learner, why (as a "student" at this conference) wasn't I asked to move around, say something, present, create, draw, list, summarize, record, write, brainstorm, collaborate, or even draw a doodle? Why didn't the presenters model the usage of new technologies in a classroom setting rather than simply click through their del.icio.us folders hunting for eyecatchers?

I'm sorry to play the naysayer on an event that conference organizers would love to declare a success; I'm sure for many the fusillade of tag-able websites was a thrill. Presenter David Warlick blogged that the conference was full of teachers who were "excited, enthused, attentive, and asking a lot of spot-on questions...and I think that the reason why, is that we’re giving them toys. " Well, those that already had the toys wanted more. I would like to experience a classroom setting where these technologies are implemented so I have a model to strive for. (Alan November does some of this beautifully in his talks by the way). No one wants to send the students back to the same old metal desks with new toys to distract them, but that was (sadly) the take-away message of this conference for me.

Great classroom tips

2008-06-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

Finishing up my first year of teaching high school felt like a massive train coming to a halt. I start teaching summer school next Tuesday (one week away!) and I didn't feel ready to start the train rolling again…until now.

I just burned through Annette L Breaux's "101 'Answers' for new teachers and their mentors: effective teaching tips for daily classroom use." OMG this book breaks down so many difficult scenarios (student is late, doesn't turn in homework, says sassy things about your carefully crafted lesson plan, mocks other students, crumples your worksheets etc.) and provides realistic solutions. Some of my favorite tips were:

1. Smile (it's contagious)
2. Take pictures of students working and post them on the walls
3. Dignify wrong answers "Thank you so much for making that mistake because we can all learn from it."
4. Say thank you often "thank you for understanding we don't chew gum in class" (to the student who is chewing gum.)
5.Write thank you notes for gives from students
6. Notice new haircuts
7. Relate your lessons to student interests with metaphors (if Jun loves cars, then the verb becomes the "driver" of the sentence.)
8. Time student transitions between activities (they love to race to beat their time)
9. Encourage improvement, not perfection
10. Make a teacher report card when you are writing student report cards: you will get amazing feedback.
11. Give constant positive feedback ("I really appreciate the cooperation I'm observing in this group," "Thanks for raising your hand").
12. Treat you students the way you hope they will behave ("You look like someone I can trust, could you take this note to the principal?).

The list goes on. The tip I plan to implement first is "set teacher goals" for each semester. The idea is that this will help track the sense of development as a teacher rather than always feeling like you couldn't cover everything and moving on. My goals for summer school are:
1. Create a new classroom management plan and implement it consistently.
2. Make every student my favorite student
3. Connect my students with technologies and information that will put them in charge of their own learning.

No Child Left Inside

2008-05-28T18:04:00.001-07:00

A fellow teacher at my school sent this short video link to the school list serve.
The basic idea is that teachers should base their lessons around the outdoors because we have so much to learn from the natural world. I usually teach a class with funny items (a wool slipper, an ipod song, a gummy bear) and ask students to practice writing with sensory details. It would be simple enough to take them outside the classroom and duplicate the activity with a flower petal, a lady bug, or a crunching leaf sound. As mentioned in the video, science class steps easily outside, but I worry a little about making the stretch from the English curriculum.

Acting for inspiration

2008-05-27T19:17:00.000-07:00

Teaching Shakespeare at the end of the school year is a tough job. Several classes floundered. Some succeeded. In general, the classes that worked well centered around lifting Shakespeare off the page and slipping him into their mouths. Today I watched a group perform act 1.2 of A Midsummer Night's Dream set in a fantastical pub called "the wood." Students brought a cooler as a prop that produced blue soda in glass bottles to serve as a beer substitute. They strolled around the classroom, gesticulating casually with blue bottles, taking sips when appropriate, and reading easily off scripts. I was moved. Their intonation demonstrated an understanding of what they were saying--a striking student accomplishment considering the difficulty of Shakespeare's language
I had dreams last week about letting down students because they won't all close the play knowing how to wax poetic about themes of the moon and eyes. Hopefully positive associations with Shakespeare will linger with them and buoy them next year as they approach Merchant of Venice, another of Shakespeare's plays.

Writing with lists

2008-05-27T19:12:00.000-07:00

I have been experimenting with more directed assignments. Generally I ask students to write a 1 page paper a week about anything they want because a) it forces them to become creative about their topics and b) they invest themselves in what they write. Two weeks ago I saw a marked bump up in the quality of writing amongst my students and it appears to be related to writing with lists.

Here was the assignment:

Lists are powerful. Lists are a good-writers trick to get people to believe you know what you're talking about. Lists are basically a ton of examples. Examples are cool.

You have now entered into the last quarter of your freshman year. I expect you to show me you can do creative, thoughtful things with words. I expect improvement from last semester. Don't bore me.

For this assignment, you can write about whatever you want, but you must include at least one list somewhere in your piece. It should be marked with an asterisks*. Read the examples in the "examples of good lists" resource in moodle to get some idea of what good lists are capable of. Go nuts. Show me what you can do.

-1 point for having a lame list
-2 points for writing about something you don't care about
-1 point for making me eat fig newtons in order stay awake to read your paper
-1 point for punctuation mistakes
-2 points for turning it it late with no chance of re-write.
-1 point for an untyped paper.

Your paper should be at least one page single spaced. Print it and bring it to class.

Examples of good lists:

1. The room was, without the kitchenette, about twelve by fifteen feet, and, crowded as it was (in addition to the bed, table, and breakfront, it contained a dresser, desk, coffee table, end-table, and easy chair, a TV set, two stand-up lamps, two small bookcases, a green leather hassock, a newspaper rack, an old costumer for their coats), Sam liked it. [Jay Neugeboren, Sam's Legacy (NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973), p. 19.]

2. Here she was, seven years his wife, he thought he knew her inside and out, every quirk of her handwriting, inflection of voice; her passion for strawberries, her ridiculous way of singing; the brown moles on her shoulder, the extreme smallness of her feet and toes, her dislike of silk underwear. Her special voice at the telephone, too--that rather chilly abruptness, which has always surprised him, as if she might be a much harder woman than he thought her to be. And the queer sinuous cat-like rhythm with which she always combed her hair before the mirror at night, before going to bed--with her head tossing to one side, and one knee advanced to touch the chest of drawers. He knew all these things, which nobody else knew, and nevertheless, now, they amounted to nothing. The woman herself stood before him as opaque as a wall. [Conrad Aiken, "Impulse"]

"Do Schools Kill Creativity?"

2008-05-12T18:43:00.000-07:00

In this short video Sir Ken Robinson argues that yes, schools do. He suggests that being successful means developing your natural talents. It takes some experimentation to figure out what those talents are, and schools should provide resources, mentors, and space for that kind of experimentation.
The video is funny, well-done, an ultimately made me want to buy ballet slippers for the repressed dancer in, well, all of us. Part of my brain insists students must learn specific skills for the job market that lies ahead, while the other half admits I have no idea what kind of job market awaits in 2016. It seems the only three things I know will help them in any profession are:
1) critical thinking skills
2) creative thinking skills
3) exposure to authors, books, and ideas that demonstrate the heritage of great thinkers that our students inherent simply by being human.
Sir Ken Robinson's lecture speaks directly to #2 listed here.

Should they all get A's?

2008-04-22T01:50:00.001-07:00

I recently turned in grades for the quarter and was shocked to discover one of my sections of English had earned almost exclusively A's. Great Scott! I thought to myself: How can this be? Am I that easy peezy teacher that hands out good grades like breath mints?

What caused this drastic disturbance to the rigor of academia?
The largest single factor in student grades so far was a project in response to The Catcher in the Rye. Because I use moodle (an online class-organization tool) to organize class, I asked students to turn in many mini-assignments along the way. Browsing through their rough drafts on the computer I noticed they lacked meaningful introductions, so we spent a day on that. I noticed they struggled to wrap things up—we covered conclusions too. I asked a series of questions that applied to all of their projects to help narrow the focus and improve the textual references.
Surprise! Many of the final products were great. Some were even (gasp*) a little brilliant.

Technology appears to improve the communication between teacher and student. It allows me to peer in on their thinking process. I see where they need help; they do everything I ask of them on their self-directed projects. I almost felt, grading those projects, as if I had no choice but to give them A's because they completed every task I set out before them.

Or was I simply wowed by how quickly they mastered comic life and voicethread?

Clearly, as we ask students to take on more creative projects, we will need to find more creative ways to grade them. But on the other hand, as we set students up for success by providing the time, opportunity, and feedback to pursue their ideas fully, shouldn't we hand over the gold star when they emerge victorious? In an ideal classroom, wouldn't every student earn an A?

The silent kid

2008-04-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

I have a Holden Caulfield wanna-bee in my class. He refuses to turn in anything. He goes mute. He lost his book. He has no homework. In small groups he avoids talking. When asked about his work he just covers his face with his hands and pretends he is invisible. His football coach said Holden responds well to discipline so I tried taking a hard line (getting angry takes a bit of work for me but I tried calling him into the hall for a stern talk, threatening him with an F etc.). No dice.

Then I had lunch with Dr. Ruth Fletcher, one of the deans at our school who specializes in learning differences. She role-played with me over vegetarian lasagna. I was Holden incarnate. She was me.

Ruth: "We are going to write down some themes about the book."
Me: "…"
R: "Do you know what a theme is?"
M: "Yeah…"
R: "Ok, what is it?"
M: "It's like, what the book is about."
R: "But not the whole book, just some parts of it. What is one thing that The Catcher in the Rye is about?"
M: "I don't know."
R: "Remember the first chapter about Pencey Prep? What was that chapter about."
M: "School"
R: "Good, write that down. Now, what about school?"

Baby steps. It's all about the breakdown in to questions that they can answer. He is scared. He has "always sucked at English." He doesn't want to complete assignments that will just further prove that he "can't do English." I told Ruth I never would have thought of those questions. I didn't know what to do with him. She said, "You have to be a teacher."

You have to coax him into understanding that he can succeed.

Today in class our activities moved away from sonnet analysis toward some improvisation to get ready for A Midsummer Night's Dream. Holden didn't need encouragement; he read a steamy love sonnet aloud to the whole class and leapt out of his seat to do a theater activity. He is in love. He is passionate. He is a performer. Then he came to my office in the afternoon and didn't close down on me. More evidence that you can't demand a lot of work from your students until you know them.

Why do I love my job so much?

2008-04-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

I love my job. It is the ying to my yang, the "pop" in my popsicle, the bag around my loose-leaf tea. However, as my job search for next fall begins, some questions about why I look forward to Mondays begin to emerge. Is it this school in particular that keeps me working until bedtime or rather enthusiasm for teaching in general that sets my alarm for sunrise? What aspects of this school are essential to perpetuate this giddy feeling towards work at my next job?

Firstly, there is the high of being in the classroom. I can't believe how quickly the minute hand ticks toward the hour. Only five minutes left? No! But don't leave me you are all so dear and wonderful. I'm serious; they keep me jazzed like an Art Blakely solo. Bapapatata! If I could teach a 2-hour block rather than one, I would.

Secondly, lesson-planning causes neurons to fire in my right frontal lobe in a pleasing way. As the freshman ramp up to start A Midsummer Night's Dream we dove into iambic pentameter today: what is that? How will I explain it clearly? What activities will allow them to manipulate the material and make it there own? Creativity abounds.

I love culling information on the internet, comparing various explanations, and piecing together one to call my own. I hop downstairs to chat with the Shakespeare veterans and they toss a few sonnets my way drizzled with wisdom of experience. Which must be reason number three of why I love my job: my co-workers impress me. I just finished a thirty-minute jam session with a Shakespeare buff in my department about the last two lines of sonnet 130:
"And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare"

The faculty I work with are bright, interesting, and kind. They create a sense of community by sharing materials and extending invitations to their lunchroom table; will I find that at other schools?

Reason 4: The laptop program (I love how it places students in the driver's seat).
Reason 5: Surprises. Students teaching me new things about a text I thought I groked completely.
Reason 6: Quality above the bar. When students lift the boards and nails of a loosely framed English project and not only erect a scaffolding, but pour a foundation and paint a wall as well, it just drops my jaw open.

Don't get me wrong, I get tired. I get burnt out. I go home after school and wake up in the dark. When no creative energy trickles through my spinal chord, I grade papers. Grading reveals the gaps in their understanding and I decipher what tomorrow's lesson plan is about.

Perhaps teaching is the perfect ADD profession: you get to hop between so many different activities (lesson planning, department meetings, student conferences, grading) there is one for every mood. But are "kids" the same everywhere or are the students where I work more enjoyable to be around?

Students pick their own books

2008-03-17T20:57:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago our freshman English sub-department discussed which texts to read for next year. A first-timer in such a discussion, I was dumbstruck to discover that such a small group of adults could so radically impact the lives of 425 fourteen year-olds.

This year all freshman had to read:
The Odyssey (Fagles translation)
The Woman Warrior
The Catcher in the Rye
A Midsummer Night's Dream

Together, seven teachers chucked The Woman Warrior for being "difficult to identify with" and had a quiet moment for the passing of The Odyssey and then cut it. In a way, we catered to the market. Students began to "misplace" their books about 200 pages into The Odyssey; The Woman Warrior led to more heads slumped on desks than is prudent to admit.

Should students only read books they like from the first page? Isn't it the teacher's job to help them through books that push their reading comprehension level? What if they love it by the end? If they don't read The Odyssey at school, then where? Does it really matter that they read that book over another?

Last week a colleague suggested to me that it doesn't matter what they read as much as how they read it. In other words, you can teach reading skills with any five books you want. If practicing reading skills is the paramount goal, small wars should not be waged over which texts to assign. And assigned texts seem to invariably lead to the uncomfortable "did you do the reading?" / "No, because I hate this book" struggles.

As a student I had to chug coffee to choke down many assigned readings--and I love to read! Something about being told what to read takes some of the fun out of it and turns a pleasure into a chore.

So why not let the students choose? (Radical I know). Let the freshman sub-department make a list of fifteen recommend books and students read a new book every three weeks. A few students will read the same book to create discussion groups and they can report their findings to the class. They will practice speaking articulately about what they read and presenting themes to a larger audience. Placing the choice in student's hands mitigates their sense of being forced to read and opens up more interesting conversations about connections between books.

Why teachers should visit other schools

2008-02-26T23:43:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine who works construction told me that his profession shifted his world-view.

"Now when I look around a room I don't think of the walls a barriers; everything can be moved. If you don't like the wall, we can knock it down, or cut a hole in it, or put a door there. Nothing is static—paint it, bevel it, hammer it—there really aren't any boundaries."

Today I visited another high school down the block from mine and received a similar reminder that everything is transitory. The teachers at University of Hawaii Lab School ask themselves the same questions I ask myself daily (should I prioritize skill over content? Should I seat friends together or separate them with a seating arrangement? What is the best thing I can do to help my students gain proficiency in writing? Should I wear this skirt with those shoes?) yet they answered them differently.

What I saw:

-Music class with 7th grades belting out traditional Hawaiian songs.
-A social studies class re-enacting the French revolution with all of the peasants sitting on the floor to show their status.
-A fifth grade class studying algebraic principles.
-A thirty-student orchestra practicing the string section in a satellite building with shiny new violas.
-Students waving "Hi Mr. Bricket!" to the principal as we walked the campus.

What a wonderful reminder of just how much we have to play with in this profession. We should all pop our heads in other school buildings once in a while and remember that the walls aren't a constant after all.

I Expected Resistance

2008-02-23T01:24:00.000-08:00

Alan November visited on curriculum day and filled our heads with possibilities for the laptop in each freshman's bookbag. November modeled examples of different student-type jobs; this was the strongest aspect of his presentation. Many say our task as teachers is to prepare students for an unimaginable job market of the future and to teach them to head companies who services are not yet needed. November's list below trains students in skills of communication and information management--both are right-brain talents (see Daniel Pink).

1. Lesson review team. Students write, edit, and direct a podcast of past lessons they have learned (when to use the semi-colon, how to do long division for example).
2. Student-teachers. Students write lesson plans for the class and, as they present, record it with a screencast device (jing works) to make a movie of their lesson. Paste it on the class website for regular viewing later.
3. Daily class recorder or "scribe." One person takes scrupulous notes for the class. (I personally can never trust someone else to take notes for me because I learn as I write, but that's just me.)
4. Communal note review. All the class notes taken by the rotating scribe are pasted into google.docs. In or outside of class students edit (and elaborate on) the notes so they become incredibly complete.
5. Global community teams. Social network with other classrooms around the world using skype, wikis, del.icio.us. (Would my students benefit from reading The Catcher in the Rye along with a class in Tokyo and discussing it with them? Why not just talk to the person next to you? I have some doubts on this one.)
6. Research managers. Teach students how to research the backers of websites and find viable sources, then feed those sites (using RSS feeds) to their homepages so they get the latest updates on their research topics.

No teacher alive currently coordinates all six jobs.

The day after November's visit I tried some of the simpler techniques in class. I think I expected a fight—some kind of "who are you to mix things up?" attitude from the students.
"So I went to this talk and basically you guys are responsible for your own education and I'm going to get out of the way now…ok?" (rough pitch I realize…I don't know what I was thinking).
They blinked at me.
I turned to student A near the corner of the room. Student A has wide eyes and lips which turn down at the edges, like a bug flew into her mouth and she holds it there courteously until class ends.
"Student A, you are going to be our scribe for this class. Could you take notes for us on google.docs?"
She swallowed the bug.
"Sure." She typed away, engaged for the first time in a while.

The next day I tried a larger leap into the world of uncertainty.

"Today you guys are going to teach one another mini-grammar lessons and we will record them. Can you be ready in fifteen minutes?"

"Yes!" They all turned to their partner and started drafting lesson plans with enthusiasm.
What? Have I really underestimated them so much? Was I a fool to think they needed to be spoon-fed comma rules when in reality they can just teach one another?
The presentations varied in quality. Some muddied the waters rather than cleared them; some taught the presenter something but not the audience. One pair leapt on the task and offered to go first. Here is the recorded screencast of their presentation:

.

What I would do differently next time:
-Ask them to create a rubric for judging the presentations and give pros and cons to each presentation before and after.
-Visit each presentation beforehand and edit before they get up to present.
-Make sure to give them a small and teachable mini-lesson ("how to choose a good paper topic" was a broad one).

Where psychotherapy, Buddhism, and technology meet

2008-02-09T02:10:00.000-08:00

From Thoughts Without a Thinker
Forward by the Dalai Lama

Recently, psychotherapists, with their background in science and medicine, have begun to explore the possibilities of employing Buddhist techniques in a therapeutic context. I feel this is entirely consistent with the aim of overcoming suffering and improving the welfare of all sentient beings. Living experience of Buddhist meditation has given practitioners a profound knowledge of the workings and nature of the mind, an inner science to complement our understanding of the physical world. On its own, no amount of technological development can lead to lasting happiness. What is almost always missing is a corresponding inner development. This is an area in which there is increasing evidence that Buddhist assertions and modern findings have to potential to be valuable to one another.

--December 1994

The school where I teach is currently in the process of choosing new laptops for the academy 1:1 laptop program. As I provide more freedom in my English assignments to take advantage of the laptops versatility, the projects that result are a multi-media extravaganza. These students don't just know how to write descriptively about dead tiger sharks that wash up on the beach; they can email internationally with shark specialists, assemble powerpoint presentations of tiger shark videos borrowed from youtube, or make their own movies based on interviews with marine biologists.

I'm just not sure if they know how to breath.
This concept of the inner development necessary to process the whirl of technological development intrigues me. For me, that processing come with rules about when to shut down the machine and go outside, correcting my work posture, and recognizing when my eyes are growing fatigued from looking at a screen for so long.

Like now.
There are many attitudes technology between the poles of technophobe and automaton. Are students aware of them?

Understanding by Design

2008-02-08T14:46:00.000-08:00

Am I the last teacher on the planet to read this book? First printed in 1998, this redefinition of the priorities in lesson-planning took ten years to reach my desk. I am a late bloomer, alas...but better now than next year.

Wiggins and McTighe suggest that knowledge (regurgitation of facts) is distinct from understanding which requires an ability to manipulate information under various circumstances. To set up students for understanding, a teacher ready to lesson-plan must shy away from the temptation to leap for activities and first ask herself:
1. What essential questions does my class attempt to answer?
2. What smaller, more palatable, unit-sized questions can I ask to engage my students into the topic?
3. What kinds of activities will allow students to grapple with various answers to those questions?
4. How will I assess a genuine understanding of those concepts?
5. Will this assessment overly-reward students for 'plugging away' at assignments rather than demonstrating true understanding?

Old-hat to many in the education world, but this really rocked my socks off. This is the scaffolding behind the student-led projects, the reason to the action, the supportive branch to the entertaining tire-swing of a class, the ying to my yang!
Do any of you lesson plan in this way?

Story of Stuff

2008-02-08T14:31:00.000-08:00

This is the most simple, illustrated explanation of globalization I have ever seen.
www.storyofstuff.com

I have passed this along to many friends and family, and I am surprised at the extent to which we all respond with the knee-jerk reaction "oh yes, everyone else in this country is wasteful, but not me."
Recognizing our daily roll in this cycle as consumers seems like the first step toward change and improvement in the system.

Waz up! with writing standards?

2008-01-16T17:46:00.000-08:00

"Mrs. davis! What is teh homewokr!!!!???""
This is a standard line from a fourteen-year-old English student over AIM.
I support playing with words-- coining them and mushing them together in new ways earns gold stars in my class. However, these quoted lines don't scream 'creative license' to me: they shout sloppy.

A few months ago I was told that the reason students don't respond to my emails about homework is because they rarely check it. "They aren't into email. They are into Facebook and AIM," explained my tech-savvy colleague. Hoping for more frequent communication between teacher and student, I signed up for America's Instant Messenger, made a screen-name, and divulged it to my students.

"YOU have AIM!" they gasped in class; first worried about the overlap of boring school with their social lives, then excited that a teacher wants to be part of their lives.
"THAT is SO COOL!" they squealed, typing away and watching as their comments appeared on my screen projected onto the overhead.

"How r u??" they wrote.
"what r u doing???" they asked.
"I'm questioning your ability to switch between formal and informal writing," I wanted to respond.
Instead I just said "hi."

On the one hand I find it flattering that they are comfortable enough with me to let down their guard. Less stuffy, more open communication blossomed from our on-line banter. They work harder for teachers they respect and relate to, so why not make it easier to relate? However, I distain such extravagance as multiple exclamation points (doesn't one get the job done?) and with automatic spell-checker at their fingertips it seems reasonable to expect written communication to remain formal.

"What iss the dilly 4 tomorrow!!!!!?"

But how can I judge them when I myself slip into this tone with my friends on gchat? The reality is that their sloppyness results from an attempt at speed. It takes longer to make the proper letters into caps and stick a comma in the right spot. Should I, as their teacher, enforce this extra 'umph' or let it slide in our informal communication?

Unpredictable Endings

2007-12-15T19:08:00.000-08:00

I taught a class last week about unpredictable endings and students peeled their faces off of facebook long enough to appear engaged. It involved reading half of an essay about a fire fighter caught in a wildfire, pausing to act out possible endings, and then comparing student endings to the author's ending. Bruce Schauble's post lit this spark for me about walking students through the writer's decision-making processes.

Step 1: Using their laptops in small groups, I asked them to find 1) an image and 2) an explanation of the following vocabulary words. We live in Hawaii so they don't know much about fires and the visuals got them excited about the topic.

Fire shelter, wildfire fighter, Army Huey, firestorm, Lewis and Clark National Forest.

Briefly, we went over their findings together.

Step 2: I photocopied a story about fighting wildfires. It was written by a college student at U of Idaho who I have never met and probably won't until she sues me for pasting her piece on the internet without permission; (Linda Lilly, wherever you are, your essay was perfect for this exercise because you yourself are a developing writer, so your moves are easier to notice--thank you!)
I broke the story into 3 parts on 3 different sheets of paper and gave them only the first section to read aloud.

"The pea-green helicopter sailed through the morning air over spans of roadless forest. It was a sweltering July morning, and the breeze in the open-air chopper was exhilarating. I sat sideways in the Army Huey with nothing but a seatbelt between me and the sky. We were in the Lewis and Clark National Forest near near White Sulphur Springs, a part of Montana that was new to me. From the air, I could see rolling hills, spotted with large grassy meadows here and there breaking up the thickly timbered terrain. Facing north, the only evidence of the fire raging behind us was the gray haze suspended around the peaks and blanketing the valleys. The crew yawned and joked over the copter's racket. John, our crew boss, strained to study the terrain, sizing up the day's assignment. We veered to the south and circled back for a landing. Dense smoke filled the sky. I could make out charred slopes and occasional trees lit at the top like candles. An intense fire front appeared to be moving our way. The fire had already consumed five thousand acres.
We piled noisily out of the helicopter and greeted Larry, our division boss. As one of three squad bosses, I was responsible for five Forest Service firefighters. I patted my pockets, web belt, and butt pack to make sure I hadn't left any of my paraphernalia on the chopper. Assessing the situation, John and Larry decided to take a closer look at the fire heading in our direction. Not more than five minutes later, we heard John's voice on the radio: Larry, this is too big and it's moving fast. Let's get out of here."Ten-four: I'll radio for release," Larry responded. While waiting anxiously for them to return, we kept an eye on the monstrous blaze that was approaching. When he got back, Larry breathlessly told us he had requested a chopper. As we waited, we could hear the sounds of bursting trees and popping needles becoming louder. Finally the chopper pilot came over the radio: "Too much smoke and wind to land. Better locate and escape route." For a moment, everyone was silent. I could hear my heart pounding in my chest."

Step 3: We talked through each line and the author's decision-making process. Why did she start with that line? Was it a good line to start with? Why? Because helicopters are interesting. Because the helicopter does something interesting (sailing). Because she began with action.

Why did the author use the verb 'sweltering' in the second line instead of saying it was a 'clear' or 'bright' morning? Why does the third line end with 'sky'? She could have written "Nothing between me and the sky but a seatbelt." What is the effect of ending a sentence with 'sky' vs. 'seatbelt'?

They did well with this because the questions are about concrete decisions rather than abstract inferences. It was teacher-directed discussion, true, but they were engaged. If I hadn't tried to use the handouts in three sections I could have allowed them to annotate the piece as we discussed the writers decisions--ah next time.

Step 4: "You have five minutes to make a 1-minute skit." In their pre-established groups of 3 or 4, students decided what would happen next in the story.

Most acted out fairly predictable endings: heroine zips herself into a fire shelter and immerges unscathed; heroine zips herself into a fire shelter and roasts like a hot dog; heroine runs to a clearing and flags down a helicopter etc. Some students created less predictable, more interesting endings: emergency SUV's zoom in through the fire, scoop up our heroine and scoot off; ice caps begin falling from the sky and heroine looses a toe to frostbite; fires encroach at the exact moment of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks and heroine uses an airplane to stop the two simultaneous fire threats.

Discussion cropped up about likely endings vs. unlikely (but possible!) endings vs. fantastical/ impossible endings. If you stop half way through your own essay, do you imagine the reader could predict the end of your story? If so, what are your options to re-capture their attention?

Step 5: Read Lilly's ending aloud.
(not in the mood to type it out right now)

Classes like this go so well--students involved, interesting writing, cool discussion--and then I catch myself wondering...is this still just teaching 1.0? ie. students acting as a passive group who I bestow knowledge upon or does this lesson allow for student-led learning?

Mirror mirror on the wall—who's the best teacher of them all?

2007-12-10T21:10:00.001-08:00

I just finished The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer. One idea Palmer borrowed from Jane Tompkin's "Pedagogy of the Distressed" spoke to me like a truth-telling magic mirror.
Apparently Tompkin's obsession as a teacher had not been helping students learn what they wanted/ needed to know but rather with:
"(a) showing the students how smart I was
(b) showing them how knowledgeable I was; and
(c) showing them how well-prepared I was for class.
I had been putting on a performance whose true goal was not to help the students learn but to act in such a way that they would have a good opinion of me…How did it come to be that our main goal as academicians turned out to be performance?...[Tompkin's later answer is fear]…Fear of being shown up for what you are: a fraud, stupid, ignorant, a clod, a dolt, a sap, a weakling, someone who can't cut the mustard."

Holla sister! Can I get an AMEN? This fear of appearing to not know everything about the English language is a serious snag in my self and my teaching. If I work so hard to make my "on-stage performance" slick and smooth, I am actually teaching my kids to act slick and smooth.
Whoops! I would rather they be more accepting of rough edges, developing unclear ideas, and mucking around in uncertainty. If that is what I want I need to model it right? This goes along with modeling my thinking process for them:
"the first time I tried this I really struggled, but after a few tries it becomes easier,"
"the photocopier isn't working, so we are moving to plan B,"
"I can't find my dongle."
I shouldn't gag on it so hard when I choke out the occasional: "I...don't..uh.. know (yet)." I'm still not totally comfortable with this idea, but I'm starting to think the Best Teacher of All is not necessarily the one with all her i's dotted and t's crossed.

Interactive television?

2007-12-04T16:08:00.001-08:00

"I don't have a problem. Seventeen hours a day online is fine."
--Lee Chang-Hoon, 15, a South Korean student at a camp for compulsive Internet users New York Times, Nov.18, 2007 (photo too)

Are laptops just interactive televisions? This NYT article poses the question. As noted in my last entry, I am a recent convert to the laptop 1:1 program because it allows my students more direct manipulability with materials. However, I fear in our societal rush to embrace technology we neglect to place computers in a reasonable framework. It is not considered healthy to watch TV five hours a night; what about five hours of computer related homework?

I know how easy it is to start researching the Chinese Cultural Revolution and end up reading about nematodes; throw ichat and facebook distractions on the fire and students easily spend six hours a day on the computer.

Along with teaching computer skills, perhaps simultaneously teachers could incorporate time-management skills for on-line use and awareness of when to unplug. To me, seventeen hours a day on-line is definitely a problem.

More Student-Led Learning

2007-12-02T02:15:00.000-08:00

After experimenting daily with the 1:1 laptop-student ratio for four months now, my #1 piece of praise for the arrangement is this: it allows for more student-led learning. Writing lesson plans at the beginning of the year, the main questions in my head usually had to do with entertaining students.
"How will I hold my students attention?"
"How can I make this comma-lesson fun and dynamic?"
While earnestly hoping the best for my students with this mindset, the questions I asked were fairly teacher-centered. They assume that a) the teacher holds the correct information and b) the teacher's job is to disseminate this information to the students. I planned my lesson this way because it is what I had seen other venerable teachers do at Whitman college.
A diagram of a teacher-centered classroom looks like this (lifted from Parker J. Palmer's The Courage to Teach):

Object: The class's subject (English, Math, Biology etc.)
Expert: The teacher
Amateur: The student

This framework expects the teacher to be an expert in their field; a specialist. It also expects students to come to class as patient and willing vessels, open to receive the good word i.e. there is nothing for them to do but listen.

Translate this into teen-speak = bored out of your gourd and texting your friends on your cell phone.

Passing twenty laptops to the students in my classroom creates an environment that looks much more like this:

The students are jazzed because there is something for them to do (information to be googled, pictures to arrange in a powerpoint, essays to edit) and they begin to feel class time is theirs to use.
Furthermore students are empowered. Instead of thinking "I don't know where commas go," they think, "I don't know the answer, but I know where to find it."

The student-led layout forces me to re-evaluate my roll as a teacher. I wonder: am I a fellow "knower" in a seat alongside other students? Am I a floating aid that roams around the room addressing questions? Am I the timekeeper, reminding them how much remains before the next activity? When they are all focused and working, do I just sit back and drink my tea?

As I sort through these questions daily one conclusion becomes obvious--student-led classes are more fun to teach. By placing students in direct contact with the material I relieve myself the onus of attempting to become a specialist of every SAT question, vocab word, sentence construction, novel, short-story, poem, and grammar rule we cover in this class (an impossible feat considering the slew of scholars who created entire careers on analysis of Homer's The Odyssey alone) and provides the space to address students individual needs.
We laugh a lot more during these types of classes.