Author: Mr. Chase

Things I Know 336 of 365: You don’t need good grades to be a teen drug kingpin

From today’s Send Me A Story via longform.org (emphasis mine):

According to law-enforcement officials, the sale of B.C. Bud has become a $7 billion-a-year industry. Though marijuana remains illegal in Canada, the stance of the government regarding pot is far less hysterical than in the United States, with laws enforced sporadically and penalties never especially stringent. “Americans like to think they can stop this,” says Donald Skogstad, a defense lawyer in British Columbia who specializes in pot cases. “The Canadian border is five times longer than the Mexican border. There is no fence, no barrier at all, just a curtain of trees. Right now, they’re catching all the dumb people. That’s all the Americans get. They’ll never get you if you’re doing it properly.”

Smugglers have buried stashes in semi trucks filled with wood chips and driven across the border. They have hidden pot in buses, in horse trailers, on trains and in mobile homes driven by gray-haired retirees. They speed across the border on snowmobiles. They kayak backwoods rivers, or fill the fiberglass hulls of yachts and sail down. They fly small planes, low, dropping their loads at agreed-upon locales — farms, raspberry fields — without landing. They have dug a 360-foot tunnel, beginning in a Quonset hut in Canada and ending in the living room of a home in Lynden, Washington. They drag their stashes underwater, behind fishing boats, so the line can be cut if an agent approaches; buoys, attached to the loads with dissolvable strips of zinc, rise to the surface the following day. They float hollowed-out logs, outfitted with GPS tracking systems, down the Kettle River. And some — “the bravest,” says Skogstad, “but not necessarily the brightest” – hike the seven-mile border crossing, through the forest, on foot.

Once Nate hatched his smuggling plan, he and Topher realized that their first order of business would be to scrape together enough cash to make a buy. Luckily, Topher had salvaged a sunken jet boat from the lake in Coeur D’Alene and had spent the summer restoring it. To kick-start their enterprise, he dragged it to the side of the highway and sold it within minutes for $1,500.

– “Kid Cannabis” by Mark Binelli from Rolling Stone Oct. 2005

I’m guessing they didn’t learn these skills in school.

Things I Know 335 of 365: Curiosity is sufficient

Enclosure occurs when content industries try to turn the Internet into a pay-per-use vending machine; when sports teams commodify the folk culture of fans by auctioning off the naming rights to sports arenas; and when companies disrupt the openness and collegiality within scientific disciplines by privatizing research and imposing non-disclosure agreements.

– David Bollier

A few weeks ago, a link came through the P2PU listserv. It led me to this list from the Open Knowledge Forum providing a great initial collection of resources for thinking about open and its implications. In conjunction with the video below from a 2007 interview with Howard Rheingold for Steal This Film 2, it’s got me thinking.

A classroom strikes me as the optimum commons. Upward of 20 individuals from diverse backgrounds meet daily with the goal learning about themselves, the world and their place in it.

Each of these people comes equipped with knowledge, skills, and experiences not shared by the other people in the room.

The questions each has about the world might intersect in overarching ways, but would likely be as unique as the individuals in other ways.

Attached to each group is at least one adult who has been trained in the general theories and practices around helping others to learn, to seek out the answers to their questions and develop deeper questions.

The classroom, considered this way, becomes laboratory, testing ground, focus group, intellectual locker room and support group. It becomes the commons ground.

The teacher need prepare very little, but should stand ready to adapt to most any eventuality. Anything can and will happen if curiosity is unhindered and unhampered.

This isn’t the case. Not enough.

If curiosity is referenced in the modern classroom, it is in the implied statement, “You should be curious about this.” If not, then we, will make you become curious about this, or at least get you to fake curiosity.

Allowing student curiosity is frightening. I means a lack of control. It means abandoning the plan and abdicating control. In most contemporary schools, even the teachers whose inclinations pull them to such abandon and abdication have no model for curiosity-driven learning in their own lives. Professional development is decided at the institutional level. Teachers are told what they are curious about. Here, again, we cannot lay blame on the shoulders of administrators. Their learning, too, is absent a model of curiosity-based learning. What they must care about is directed by the policies and directives of those above them.

This externally-directed curiosity continues up the hierarchy of formal education until those making the directives become so diluted in their understandings of the power of natural curiosity and the potential of the commons that they make decisions apparently absent any faith in an individual’s propensity to wonder.

This can shift in several ways. Those within the hierarchy at various levels can wait for the directives to change, for the strictures to be reduced and for curiosity to be the guiding principle of education. Additionally, they can move themselves from one level of the hierarchy to another and attempt to cling to their ideals while using those ideals to shift the strictures.

Perhaps most immediately effective, though less impactful on the entire system until critical mass is reached, is ignoring of the directives and belief that learning led by curiosity will be sufficient.

This means embracing the commons of the classroom. More importantly and difficult, it means teaching in the face of scholastic inheritance and trusting the sufficiency of students’ curiosity.

Things I Know 334 of 365: Earth might have a partner for twin day during the next spirit week

If your first instinct it to tell me all the reasons this isn’t exciting or give the statistics regarding little chance there is of anything coming of this, I’ll see you at 335 of 365.

For the rest of you, I’ve been consuming information about Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f.

This is what I learned about when I watched Star Trek as a kid. It’s what excited my imagination when watching the short-lived Earth 2, and it’s what makes looking at the stars on a clear night while I’m home in Illinois so exciting.

Though the first two earth-sized planets to be orbiting a sun like ours existed long before the discovery was published in Nature, there’s something different now. Though the likelihood of life as we know it existing on the planets is almost inconceivable, there’s a reduced sense of aloneness attached to knowing they’re there.

This is the value of STEM in schools, the ability to incite wonder in the world and beyond.

We noticed a dimming of the sun using a satellite Galileo would have swooned over and then measured wobble of the star caused by the gravity of the planets.

And we haven’t even seen them.

We think they’re there.

The evidence says it’s likely they’re there and they’re planets..

It’s as close as scientists get to faith.

It’s beautiful.

Though we haven’t seen them, exactly, humanity cannot help but try to imagine what these distant neighbors look like.

I’m going to go get some butcher block paper and my crayons.

Things I Know 333 of 365: There’s another angle to class-size reduction

I know that class size matters.

– Allen H. Messinger, 32-year teaching verteran

I wonder if we aren’t approaching the idea of class size reduction from the wrong angle or angles.

The most common argument for reducing the size of general education classes is increased student achievement. As evidence much research is available, perhaps most classically cited, and certainly most comprehensive is the work done around the Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio project in Tennessee (PDF). While the project showed marked and sustained gains in learning for students in small classes (specifically in historically low-achieving populations), context proved key. Small class sizes work best when teachers teach better. Glad that got cleared up.

In the “Against” column we have cost. Reducing the size of classes costs money. It costs space. If there’s a resource, reducing class size probably costs some of whatever it it.

As is so often the case, implemented as mandate and not as a systemic re-design, the greatest cost can be quality. Without building partnerships between institutions of higher education to better prepare new teachers and more of them, class-size reduction legislation can result in the wrong people leading classrooms.

When I moved to Florida to teach out of my undergrad at Illinois State, it was because the district sent representatives to the University’s education job fair to recruit. I was one of many new hires that year who was recruited from out of state. Such recruitment was necessary for the district to secure the best teachers. And ours was a wealthy district. Schools further inland hadn’t the resources to send folks around the country to recruit teachers to keep up with the demands of shrinking classes.

It isn’t that class-size reduction is bad policy. Again, we’ve the research to show the opposite. When initiatives are entered into haphazardly without consideration of hidden costs or what might be brought to bear by the Law of Unintended Consequences, their failures are not surprising.

And, in most cases, we’re not shrinking classes enough, as the evidence points to 16 or 17 being the optimum number of students in class for achievement to improve.

Class-size reduction costs money. Doing it right – phasing the initiative in over time, building bridges between districts and preparatory programs, teaching teachers to adapt their practice to optimize the new classroom, and building facilities so there are actual classrooms – costs even more money.

While I am a fan of achievement, it’s not the my main concern in advocating smaller class sizes.

Enter the new angle.

Smaller class sizes mean more adult and kid interaction. They mean more students get seen, more students get personal attention, and more students have direct role models.

In Horace’s Compromise, Ted Sizer wrote, “Eighty years ago, most adolescents had far more sustained contact with both older and younger people than do today’s youth. The separateness and the specialness of adolescence were less attended to.”

The larger classes become, the more reduced the amount and quality of time students have with adults whose soul purpose is to help those students navigate the murky waters of how to find the best versions of themselves.

The Internet, texting, and the like are frequently cited as de-socializing students and tearing at social fabric.

If they are, it’s because they’ve taken their cue from the policies we’ve adopted and the schools we’ve built, which surround students with those as equally inexperienced at life as they are and as few adult mentors as possible. Class sizes should be reduced not because it will help students become better readers, subtractors, or test takers. Class sizes should be reduced because it will help students become better people.

Things I Know 332 of 365: This is the meaning of life

If it isn’t, I don’t know what is.

Things I Know 331 of 365: I’ve had three great loves

I was sitting in my dorm room my freshman year of undergrad when the phone rang. I could hear from the quiver in my voice that my mom had seen what happened.

“Josh!” she said.

“I know,” I said, “I saw.”

We were both pretty broken up. The call only lasted 45 seconds.

“It’s back on,” I said.

“I’ll talk to you later,” she said.

It’s a rare day that I return to “In the Shadow of Two Gunmen” parts I and II, otherwise known as the second season premiere of The West Wing. I still tear up.

—

It was a point of contention between my friends and I.

“You have to.”

“I’ve tried. I just don’t see it.”

“C’mon, it’s brilliant?”

“Really? ‘Cause I had to turn it off the last time I watched it.”

“Give it another try. It’s exactly the kind of show you’d love.”

It wouldn’t be until Arressted Development came out on DVD and my friend Rachel loaned me the first season, that I would truly see the beauty of the show that launched Michael Cera’s career, brought Jason Bateman back into the public eye, and cemented my appreciation for the mind of Mitchell Hurwitz. Though the show was cut down before its time, I am among the throngs of viewers waiting for it’s re-launch next year and subsequent movie.

—

A backyard surprise party for my best friend Luke somewhere outside of Los Angeles.

The rest of the partygoers have headed home. It’s the first birthday I’ve spent with Luke in our 17 years of friendship and I’ve no intention of moving.

“But I don’t care about football,” I say to his business partner David.

“You don’t have to care about football. It’s not really about football.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I love The West Wing too. And this show might be better than The West Wing. It’s the kind of filmmaking I want to be doing.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Luke has jumped in. “You have to see it. I know you’re going to love it.”

“Clear eyes. Full hearts,” David says.

“Can’t lose!” Luke yells back in response.

Not until two months later, when I’m alone on the couch and they inspire goose bumps, do I understand the place of those words within the world of Friday Night Lights. One episode in, and I’m in love the way I wasn’t sure I’d ever be after Arrested Development or The West Wing.

—

I’ve said before we’re miseducating students if we don’t teach television as literature. In the same way I get lost in The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia or Lord of the Flies, I get lost in the words of Sorkin, Hurwitz and Berg.

The West Wing was the second language of SLA. We often drank from the keg of glory and called for the “finest muffins and bagels in the land.” We paused in moments of appreciation when our dialogue become “Sorkinian.”

If your impression of a chicken includes, “Chaw-chee-chaw-chee!” or you are well-versed on never-nudes, I know we can be friends.

More and more, I’m an advocate of teaching Season 1 of Friday Night Lights alongside a reading of The Odyssey. I find the dead-on portrayal of small-town life inspiring and too close to the truth at times.

I’m sure, or at least hopeful, I’ll fall in love again. Until then, these are the three great television loves of my life.

Things I Know 330 of 365: This is what I mean when I talk about authentic learning

The closer you stay to emotional authenticity and people, character authenticity, the less you can go wrong. That’s how I feel now, no matter what you’re doing.

– David O. Russell

I met my friend Andrew Sturm a few months ago at ReImagine:Ed. He’s about one of the most kind, thoughtful and creative people you could hope to meet. Among his other duties, Andrew was at Re:Ed to provoke by sharing his work with 5750 Dallas.

5750 Dallas is so named because there were 5750 men, women, and children who were homeless in Dallas at last count. Their goal is to reduce that number while guided by research that supports the idea that the best way to get people off the street is to give them a home and training rather than training toward a home. A model guiding by the organization Housing First.

Inspired by the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 5750 took to the streets populating public spaces with plywood cut-outs in the shape of homeless people holding cardboard signs with Dr. King’s words on them.

The signs also included things like:

A frozen yogurt store sells $250,000 worth of product every month. That could buy 500,000 meals for the homeless.

or

For what you spent on your iPod and music collection, you could buy 598 pairs of shoes for those in need.

and

On Super Bowl ticket gives you a seat for 4 hours. That money could give a homeless person a bed for two years.

The 5750 site has more information on the installation and accompanying next steps they organized for those moved to act.

—

This is amazing work that combines art, math, social sciences, civics, and English.

Why aren’t projects like this starting in schools? The creativity is there, the knowledge and resources are there. And I’ve  a hunch Sturm and everyone associated with 5750 Dallas would have been happy to work with teachers and students if they’d been approached.

These are lessons and unit plans waiting to be written. The algebra, research, persuasion and design skills here are all nestled snugly in the Common Core (though you wouldn’t worry about that if you were in Texas).

I’m blown away by the simplicity, beauty, and impact of the work of 5750 Dallas. Since I met Andrew, I’ve shared the installation with a few dozen people.

Think about it this way, what would students who designed and executed a project like 5750 Dallas know and be able to do when they were done? What would they feel compelled to do next? How long would that learning last?

Things I Know 329 of 365: Commenting creates space for teacher learning

If a teacher told me to revise, I thought that meant my writing was a broken-down car that needed to go to the repair shop. I felt insulted. I didn’t realize the teacher was saying, “Make it shine. It’s worth it.” Now I see revision as a beautiful word of hope. It’s a new vision of something. It means you don’t have to be perfect the first time. What a relief!

– Naomi Shihab Nye

Last year, as I prepared the write-ups of assignments for my 11th-grade class, I would send them to the two seniors who were assigned as student assistant teachers in those classes.

Those e-mails often included the subject line, “What do you think?”

I knew what I was trying to get across with the assignment and had a general idea of what the final products would look like, but that doesn’t mean I wrote about it as clearly as possible.

A day or two later, I’d have their replies in my inbox with comments and questions that couldn’t help but make my instructions better.

They picked out pieces of the alignment to SLA’s core values or wording in the rubric that was unclear. They also told me when I asked a greater time commitment than my kids could spare at the moment. As close as I was with my students, my SATs were closer.

I’d imagine someting similar happened this semester with my professors and the teaching fellows (Harvard’s version of teaching assistants). When we had questions or concerns over readings or other assignments, they were the first line of defense.

It’s what led me to suggest a better utilization of technology in the handing out of assignments – Google Docs.

My favorite cloud-based word processing engine and yours started offering a new sharing option in docs a while back.

You can share a doc publicly and allow commenting, but not editing. I used it a bit this semester when asking for feedback on my writing, and the applications for teachers or professors and their assignments makes great sense.

I would handle it just as I had handled the SAT review process in the classroom, and add assignment commenting as another layer of refinement. Students would add their comments and questions about the work in-line. I’d have a clear course for making things clearer and a leg up on improving the assignment if I planned on using it again later.

Aside from sharing the load, making assignments more accessible, and refining our work; the thing that excites me most about this idea is the modeling of learning that’s involved. With all the chatter around teachers being learners and learning alongside students, we don’t often offer concrete examples of how that can happen. This approach honors the authority of the teacher while also honoring the process of revision. It says to students, “I’m doing the same kinds of work I’m asking you to do.”

Things I Know 328 of 365: My brother has finals today

He’s 12.

He’s in the sixth grade.

He has three of them on one day.

Scantron’s included.

Someone stop this.

Things I Know 327 of 365: The sweet spot is in the browning, not the burning

A life lesson from baking.

Yesterday’s cookie recipe included the following direction:

To make icing, melt the butter in a skillet over low heat and swirl the pan over the heat for about four-five minutes until butter begins to brown. Be careful, you don’t want to burn the butter—you just want to brown it! It will happen fast and when it does, immediately take the browned butter off the stove and pour into a mixing bowl.

My beliefs about butter were challenged. I’ve whipped butter, cut it in, and melted it. This is to say nothing of the more pedestrian spreading of butter. To my mind, I’d pushed butter to its limits.

This was new.

Melt it, heat it, take butter to the brink. The key, don’t burn the butter. Watch for the line separating making something new and making something useless.

That idea appeals to me.

Think differently about what can be done, what things and people are capable of, but remain mindful of the burning. For Icarus, the lesson came with flight. For me, it came with a cookie recipe.