The Gist:
- The federal budget has eliminated direct funding for the National Writing Project.
- Without the funding, it’s unlikely this national model of a successful networked collective of professional development can survive.
- This is one of those moments when the network we talk about so frequently can make the difference we’re always claiming it can make.
The Whole Story:
If you haven’t written your congresspeople to support the National Writing Project, you need to.
My last post focused on the letter I’ve used to contact my congressmen. Thanks to Karl and Ben for reposting. Also, if you haven’t read Bud’s letter, you should.
I need to make clear, that, aside from being able to speak at NWP’s Digital is… conference in the fall, I’m not directly associated with the Project.
I simply realize it to be a good idea. A really good idea with a proven record, a tendency toward self-evaluation and networking hundreds of thousands of teachers together with a simple purpose.
It’s one of those few black and white moments in policy. The NWP works. It works better than any other national education program that comes to mind.
So, here’s the thing, this is one of those moments we talk about when we talk about the power of network, when we stand and tell rooms full of teachers about how being connected means our students have greater voice and greater power as citizens. It strikes me this is one of those moments we’re talking about.
Only, it’s not our students, it’s us. Yes, it’s about our students, as they are the ones the NWP is impacting. But the voices that should be raised first and loudest in this moment are the voices of teachers.
My voice right now is one of questions. Specifically, I’m with Bud in asking to see the reasoning behind cutting the funding and how that reasoning stands up to the substantial evidence that the NWP is doing exactly what it is meant to do and what no singular state-based program could accomplish. I hope to receive response soon.
Honestly, though, the likelihood of response is increased with each additional voice.
Speak up.
Ask your representative to sign Rep. George Miller’s Dear Colleague letter. Call your local NWP affiliate to see what you can do to help. Most importantly, make this a conversation where you live, in your virtual and real spaces.
Again, this isn’t national standards or RTTT or any of the myriad issues with equally numerous and complex perspectives.
NWP works.
Tell people.
Make sure one of them is your Representative.
The Gist:
- The current draft of the federal budget cuts direct funding for the National Writing Project.
- The NWP has been one of the few extremely successful examples of a nationally-networked effort to improve K-12 writing for 36 years.
- We must communicate with Congress to change the budget.
The Whole Story:
Dear Rep. Fattah, Sen. Casey and Sen. Specter:
I write to you on behalf of the National Writing Project. More precisely, I write to you on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of students and teachers the program has transformed over its 36 years.
Under the budget proposed by President Obama, national funding for the NWP would be cut. In a Feb. 1 press release from the U.S. Department of Education, the NWP was lumped in with 5 other projects losing funding because the DOE claims they “duplicate local or state programs or have not had a significant measurable impact.”
As the NWP is unique as a networked writing instruction program with 200+ local sites serving all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, I am left to believe Sec. Duncan is claiming the NWP falls under the category of not having a “significant measurable impact.”
This too is untrue.
A 1987 longitudinal study on the effects of the NWP by Kathy Krendl and Julie Dodd found participating third through twelfth graders showed an increase “in interest in learning about writing, in their level of confidence, and in their association of self-esteen with good writing.
Not only that, the study also found a decrease “in students’ feelings of discomfort about completing writing assignments and in their feelings that they do not write well and that writing is difficult.”
In a 2007 study of the NWP’s Local Site Research Initiative, across nine localities students showed significant or non-significant favorable results in all seven categories.
This should not have been surprising considering the DOE’s own data listed the NWP as exceeding its performance targets in 2001. Indeed participants’ ratings across all categories ranged from 95-88 percent reporting positive impact at their follow-up assessment of the program. This went well above the program’s target of 75 percent in each category.
Were this simply an impassioned plea, I would have hesitated to write. The data speaks for itself, the National Writing Project has offered a significant return on investment in its 36 year history. Federal funding for the NWP must be maintained if we are to continue striving to meet the Project’s goal of “a future where every person is an accomplished writer, engaged learner, and active participant in a digital, interconnected world.”
I thank your for your time and attention to this matter. Please, let me know if I can be of any assistance.
Sincerely,
Zachary Chase
English Teacher
Philadelphia, PA
(Note: See also Bud Hunt’s post on this topic.)
Tom Hoffman posts this from Caroline Grannan:
Well, I have a proposal. Those 93 teachers, support staff and administrators should get together, pull the necessary strings (which are in their reach right now while the story is hot), and request a meeting with the president – all 93 of them. If Obama could have a beer with Henry Louis Gates and that cop whose name I’ve now forgotten, surely he’s willing to spend a little time hearing the viewpoint of 93 people whom he has essentially attacked sight unseen. While it would be hospitable for him to invite them to the White House, it would be a lot classier for him to have a soothing spot of tea catered in at Central Falls High School. (And he desperately needs to show a little class right now; his supply is perilously low.) I’m sure the cafeteria has enough room to seat the Central Falls 93, Obama and his entourage.
Technically, in this comparison, isn’t President Obama the cop? Maybe the UN should have them over.
The Gist:
- Thought and Idea are different things.
- We encourage both in the classroom.
- I’m not sure which I privilege more.
- I’m not sure which I should.
The Whole Story:
Disclaimer: My line of thinking here is protean. Ideally, I’d play with it as a comment somewhere first. As I haven’t run into such a post yet, I’m diving in.
I spent much more time than I thought I would in the last post trying to parse out what I meant or needed from differentiating thought and idea. I think I got there. The final point was where I was headed. And, hey, who doesn’t like finishing writing and finding they’ve called their colleagues hypocrites?
Let me first turn to my own hypocrisy before I start talking practice. I wasn’t playing for a while there. It’s a shame really, because Mrs. Cavitt made a point in kindergarten of stating I play well with others . Right now, my play is commenting. I figure if the minds I admire are bringing their toys to the table, I might as well play. Down the road, we’ll see what ideas spring from it. For now, I’m making time to play.
As for my classroom:
I’d be hard pressed to find a day when I don’t directly ask my students to think. I’d be hard pressed to find a day when I don’t directly ask my students to come up with ideas. I do these things as a matter of habit. I’d imagine any teacher does.
But, do I mean it?
When I ask a student to think, I think I do mean it. I want them looking for patterns, connections, variables, ideas. I want them thinking. The world needs them thinking. When they watch television, I want them thinking. When they’re at the movies, walking down the street, riding the trolley - I want them thinking. I want them to think as often as possible. When I ask it, I mean it.
My aims with ideas are squishier. I ask for ideas. “What ideas do you have?” I’ll ask. Some days, ideas are in season and falling from the sky. Some days, not.
When the ideas don’t come, what do I do? Usually, I talk. Sometimes, it’s a statement. Sometimes, it’s a question. Rarely, is it anything that looks like asking them to play with their thoughts until ideas happen.
What message is this sending? Honestly.
If I’m asking for ideas and they don’t come, shouldn’t I be asking them to play?
“Teaching them to think,” pops up more likely than I’d like in my reading online. Aside from being asininely presumptuous, it sounds dangerous. They know how to think. Sure, maybe some of my students don’t think as deeply or complexly as I’d hope for them, but they’re thinking. I don’t need to teach them to think, I need to give them space to think. I need them to have space to play with thoughts, put them together and make ideas.
I don’t know that I let that happen as much as I’d like. The feeling that they could do that much more if I made sure they had this tool or experience with this line of thinking leads me down the path of profering too much.
I end up the parent whose child has 1 million toys but is sitting playing with the cardboard box in which the last toy arrived.
The project my G11 students are working on now has taken a turn toward play. I’m working on making the necessary adjustments for my G12 kids.
I should be privileging ideas as much as I’m privileging thinking.
vs.
The Gist:
- Thought and Idea are different things.
- We encourage both in the classroom.
- I’m not sure which I privilege more.
- I’m not sure which I should.
(Note: I started thinking more than I planned. The last three points will have to be in my next post.)
The Whole Story:
Disclaimer: My line of thinking here is protean. Ideally, I’d play with it as a comment somewhere first. As I haven’t run into such a post yet, I’m diving in.
Claim the First: Thought and Idea are different concepts
It’s highly likely that everyone is on board with this already, but I hadn’t been until recently. Asking me to think about something and asking me to come up with an idea are different requests. To me, thinking can include, but isn’t limited to, walking and making connections between the intellectual paths of others. Having an idea, though, is making something new, sometimes utilizing those intellectual paths, sometimes operating apart from them. Social bookmarking is an idea. Figuring out how to create it, utilize it, improve it are all thoughts.
Claim the Second: Thought usually precedes idea
Continuing the social bookmarking example, whatever the first iteration of social bookmarking, its creator likely went through a thought process driven by a problem. The thought process probably noted the insufficiencies inherent in the present situation as well as the desired features beyond those insufficiencies. With thinking, the process can end there. It can end at any step of the game: “Oh, there’s a problem.” “Oh, here’s why this problem exists.” “Oh, here’s what I’d like out of a solution to that problem.” “Oh, here’s what it would take to make that solution real.” “Oh, here’s that solution.” That last part is the idea, arrived at through thought.
Claim the Third: Thought mustn’t always precede idea
More than once, I’ve heard people complain Wave doesn’t solve a problem. They don’t know why they need it because it doesn’t fill an obvious need. It’s an idea that precedes thought. Now, I’m sure Wave’s developers see the need, I’m sure they thought it out. The difference between social networking and Wave exists in the paths of thinking. Many people had identified the problem, the causes and what they’d like to see in a solution leading up to the advent of social bookmarking. Thus, when the idea arrived, it was embraced more readily than has been the case with Wave. Wave was an idea whose time hadn’t yet come.
Claim the Fourth: Ideas from minority thoughts face a greater chance of rejection
The clamor for Wave invitations was as frenetic as the clamor for gmail invitations or the race to blogging, or the race to myspace (remember that?), or the race to space. We’d agreed we wanted to get there because it was a new idea with the force of those we knew behind it. Then, we got to Wave. Then we were there and looking around. Then we started complaining. We didn’t know why we were there. By and large, we still don’t. We’ve started leaving.
Claim the Fifth: The rejection of minority thoughts evidences hypocrisy
A common cry of keynotes and conference sessions and blog posts and podcasts is that we should not only allow, but encourage our students to play. Sometimes we mean this in a social way. Sometimes we mean this in an intellectual way. Either way, the implication is that we are asking our students to play for the inherent value of discovery within play. They will uncover new ideas. Play is thought without repercussions or expectations. When my younger brother dumps out his LEGOs and begins building, that’s play. When he dumps out his LEGOs and begins building based off of the diagram included with his latest set, that is not play. Minority thoughts give us ideas without diagrams and ask us to play. Though we encourage this in our students and claim to be dedicated to it in our own practices, if we can’t see the endgame or the relevance we frequently decide not to play.
This post serves as further evidence. In writing it, I’m asking if you want to play with ideas. In reading it, you’re looking for your diagram, looking to see if my idea lines up with your thinking. If you’ve made it this far, you likely want to play. If you haven’t, you’re probably not a player. Playing (or commenting) means you either want to see what we can make or that you see your thinking in these words and want to utilize the idea.
The Whole Story:
This semester has afforded me the opportunity to teach a class I’ve always wanted to teach - Storytelling. Thus far, we’re still fumbling with the ideas of what makes a story and what stories tell us about who we are. We’re playing directly and academically with those ideas every day we meet.
Except one.
Each Tuesday is story slam day. A blend of the stylings of The Moth and Philadelphia’s own First Person Arts’ story slams, the slams in class have some simple rules:
Five storytellers are randomly selected for each slam.
Their stories must be inspired by the week’s theme.
The stories must be true.
No memorization / scripts.
After each story, three randomly selected audience judges score the storyteller on content and presentation on a scale of 1-10. All the SLAms are here and here.
The room is re-arranged and coffee and tea are served.
In general, it’s a light-hearted, informal experience.
This Tuesday, though, proved one of the most profound and humbling experiences I’ve had in a classroom from my first days in Kindergarten.
The theme was “Giving Up,” and Lewam took the stage.
(audio not available in feed readers)
I’ve been working to process the story from the moment she told it.
Here’s where my mind stands. I’m at once incredibly sad and incredibly proud.
No matter how much I’ve tried or organized or listened or worked, a student in my charge felt pain within my room and within my walls.
In talking to Chris about it, he gave me the words I think I needed. Pieces of what we do will always be invisible. Pieces of our students’ lives will always be invisible. Unless we want to suit up with full-on, both-end-of-candle-burning messiah complexes, we will never see all of the invisible pieces of each child’s life. I’m not so dense as to be ignorant of this fact.
When the fact stands at a microphone in front of 30 of its peers and pronounces itself, though, the effect is markedly different. It is strikingly visible.
She stood in front of the room and said that, to her, the care and culture and collaboration had, for much of her time, failed her.
So, what do stories tell us about ourselves?
What does this moment mean?
It is complex.
When her name was called, she did not hesitate to take the mic. She did not attempt to negotiate to tell her story later or go last. She spoke truth to the power of community because the community told her it was ok.
What do we do with that?
That is, of course, rhetorical. We must honor it. To maintain integrity, we honor it.
Ego is pushed aside, and the community must reflect.
She found her voice, but felt we did not honor it. I am saddened by this and feel I did the best I could by her. It would be easy to go to “My best wasn’t good enough.” Instead, I’m drawn to the idea that my best should have been different. I’m not the only player here. Her classmates, the faculty, Lewam - they’ve all played their parts. My part is to be responsible for what I do and what I can influence. For sure, I’ll be asking Lewam for advice for the future. I’ve already told her her words impacted me more than most anything I’ve experienced in the classroom.
The Gist:
Lewam likely couldn’t have told this story last year or the year before.
She told it though.
And the room listened.
The applause you hear were the longest and most sincere of any slam we’ve put on. Even the kids who tune out or make cute jibes were silent. They saw her, they connected.
Not altogether surprisingly, she received straight 10s from each judge.
Something sits and works at my brain. What do I do with the fact that her story points to the community’s failure, but her telling of the story leads me to believe the community had something to do with helping her find her voice?
What do stories tell us about who we are?
The Gist:
- Something happened in class today that surprised me.
- Students chose to work together.
- They had an out I probably would have availed myself of, but they didn’t take it.
The Whole Story:
By all accounts, they shouldn’t have done it.
Just the same, 8 students sat in a group in my first period class today and worked on a seemingly insolvable problem.
For the last six weeks or so of class, my students have been researching problems or issues in the world that they thought deserved attention. Nothing was off the board. In fact, the whole thing started by putting every problem they could think of on the board in my classroom with no filter for ideas that might otherwise have gotten at least a jeer or two.
For six weeks they’ve been working largely independently to understand these problems. They’ve been asking questions, mining information and putting it here and here on their class blogs.
The whole thing’s led to some difficult conversations about what happens when you begin to lose interest in something you care about, what to do when you feel like you’ve been scratching at the surface so long you’re out of fingernails and other such problems.
It’s been an interesting stretch of learning how to write in a new medium and research in mediums old and new.
Last week, we moved to Phase II. Each student was required to prepare a fact sheet on his or her individual problem. I almost told them what a fact sheet was and how it could be formatted, then I remembered the Interwebs exists and let them figure it out on their own.
Following the fact sheets, they were given a solution organizer asking them to track causes, effects, solutions, main players, etc.
Their research fed the fact sheets which fed the solution organizers.
Today, things got a little more interesting, they got their solution groups.
After polling everyone on their topics, I went through and assigned groups based on perceived commonalities. In today’s class, this meant:
- Inhumane Acts
- Health
- Violence
- Climate
- Social Issues
After they’d seen their groups, I told the students I realized my impression may not be the correct one and I was open to rearrangements. In particular, I sat waiting for the Social Issues group. With eight members, it’s the largest group in the class and contains the topics:
- animal abuse
- abortion
- stem cells
- natural disaster response
- poverty
- overpopulation
- education
As the name implies, the Solution Groups are charged with looking at the commonalities of their problems and identifying where strategic additional pressure would lead to a shared improvement in the identified area of need. Solve many problems with one action, rather than asking people to do many things to solve many problems.
Ten minutes in, Social Issues was still talking things out. I went over to check in, “You know, if you think this group needs to divide into smaller groups with more commonalities, I’m cool with that.”
“No,” said they, “We’re working on it.”
And they were. It was weird.
Look back up at that list, I certainly have. I cannot conceive an application of pressure that would catalyze solutions to all of those issues.
Still, I’ve a group of students who will be coming back tomorrow to give it another go.
Tonight, they’re looking at this article and each member is drafting three possible group goals that match the criteria.
It’s as though no one told them they couldn’t do it.
You won’t hear it from me.
The Gist:
- 1,867 people accounts are connected to me through Buzz, ‘Book, chat and Twitter.
- I don’t know 1,867 people.
- Even accounting for 40 percent overlap, I don’t know 1,120.2 people.
- We might not be friends.
The Whole Story:
Between the killing of time at the Denver International Airport and turning on my phone upon landing safely in Philadelphia last night, I inadvertently direct messaged a few hundred people the promise I could help them “get bigger and have sex longer.”
In the three hours I was in the air, 4 people direct messaged and 15 people replied to me on twitter to alert me to the promises I’d made and suggested perhaps I’d been hacked.
I changed my password and tweeted out a clarification.
Then, I went to my sent direct messages to see who I’d accidentally spammed. After 7 pages, I stopped deleting the messages.
That little episode and a conversation I had with Ben got me thinking.
I did the math. All told, I’m connected to 1,867 accounts through buzz, twitter, Facebook, twitter and chat. Allowing for 40 percent overlap, I’m still connected to 1,120.2 people. I don’t know that many people.
I don’t think I would want to know that many people.
The popularity contest of it all is a little ridiculous as well. What do I think is going to happen if I hit 1,000 followers on twitter? I’m not completely certain, but I know it’ll mean I no longer will be shackled by mortal foibles.
I could be wrong.
Chris has 3,970 followers. I mean, he’s a happy guy, but I don’t think he’s reached Nirvana. The White House is followed by 1,709,139 and that job’s not exactly looking like a walk in the park.
The thing is, I talk on a regular basis with 2 people with whom I attended high school and 3 people with whom I attended college. Maybe 20 people make up the cadre to which I turn for professional and personal support. Throw in the accounts of about 5 neophyte family members. That leads me to 30 accounts. Who are the other 1,827 people accounts?
More to the point, am I a better person / teacher for being connected to them?
As reciprocity’s been big in my mind as of late, are they better for being connected to me?
Or, are we just connected because it’s easy?
The Gist:
- Group work can be messy.
- Collaboration is a key.
- I’m playing with Google Wave to try to make these work together.
The Whole Story:
If you want to see a myriad of responses, tell a room of seniors at an inquiry-driven, project-based high school that they’ll be working in groups in their final semester. The kids who are aces roll their eyes. They don’t want to carry another group across another finish line.
The kids who don’t do much breathe a sigh of relief. (Thank you, aces.)
The kids who get lost are lost.
The teacher of these 32 crosses his fingers and rolls the dice.
Collaboration is one of SLA’s core values. I attempt to build it into every primary and secondary element of my classroom. Collaboration in the form of group work in a more relaxed, mid- to long-term assignment gets messy.
Sometimes I manage to create mechanisms that hold group member individually accountable for their contributions to the final product.
My attempts to monitor contributions during the projects has often created a paperwork fiasco that tells me a lot of but doesn’t tell the kids much.
In my G12 storytelling class, we’re dealing with a unit around the question, “How do stories tell us who we are?”
I’m having kids read multiple works, take notes, share notes, have conversations in class, see what they can learn.
I decided to use Google Wave to manage the unit’s study. Here are the basics:
- SLA has Google Apps (incl. Wave) installed so that every community member has an @scienceleadership.org sign-in.
- I created a wave and invited every student across both sections of the class as a participant.
- One of the blips on the wave listed the 3-member groups (with sections intermingling across sections).
- Each group was assigned to create their own new wave for the group adding me as a member.
- I post the readings to the main class wave, students copy the assignment to a new blip in their group waves and take their notes.
The first reading went up last week.
This might come across as creepy, but I was able to watch students do their homework. I was able to poke, prod, question and suggest as they were working to head off problems before they became problems.
Before class, the day after the assignment, I knew who was prepared and who wasn’t. I was able to needle the kids who hadn’t done anything. I’d already helped the kids who didn’t get it.
The endgame of this assignment is for the students to create a product that answers the essential question as their knowledge stands.
With each successive reading, they’ll add blips and build their collective knowledge.
Ideally, they’ll begin poking, prodding, questioning and suggesting within their group waves prior to class. Ideally.
Here’s what was messy:
- Some of my kids were early attempters with wave and (not unlike many people I know) had decided wave wasn’t worth their time.
- It’s something new. As intuitive as much of wave is, there’s a learning curve.
- They didn’t realize #2 and signing up, adding contacts, etc. ate up a chunk of one class period.
I’m sure there will be more mess, but that’s learning.
My aces asked me, “What if I read my article, but my group members don’t read theirs?”
My answer, “I’ll know and work with them.”
In the end of the beginning: My aces were accountable for their work, and I was able to help them make it better as they did it. They only had to worry about carrying themselves across this finish line. The kids who don’t do much had done some more. Not all of them did something, but more than usual. The kids who get lost had been given re-direction as they cut their path into the unknown. Maybe they got lost once we got to class discussion, but they made it to class discussion.
I really like learning.
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