Author: Mr. Chase

My inbox held this message last night:

I’d forgotten I’d signed up for an invite to Pownce a little over a month ago. In fact, I’d forgotten what it was. Given the pace at which tools hit the web, I’m hesitant to try many things out. Pownce wins.

Think of it as “Twitter on steroids” as Marcie said. The setup is similar, but it’s also ready with a desktop app that runs on Adobe AIR.

The big draw for me is the range of tools Pownce brings to the table:

• No 140-character limit which was cute in the beginning, but frustrating when I need to say something more intricate.
• 10 MB file transfer capabilities (100 MB if you pony up the $20/yr. for a pro account)
• Link posting capabilities (I know this is easy in twitter, but it’s still nice.)
• Event posting capabilities.

Now, I’m also a fan of the little things. A person’s Pownce profile page will also hold contact info. from pretty much any social networking, IM or web-based presence you can think of. It’s a one-stop shop to look at a person’s online footprint and has already proved itself helpful in tracking down a friend’s info.

So, I’ve a few invites left for Pownce for those who are interested (It’s still in Beta, so admission is invite-only). As soon as the network’s big enough, I’ll be deleting my twitter account. Yeah, that’s how much I believe in it.

It will be interesting to see if/how soon this app gets snatched up by the likes of Google, Myspace,  Facebook or the like.

Back in the classroom after a week in Long Beach working with the Freedom Writers Foundation to engage, enlighten and empower a group of 30 educators from across the country. It was my first extended absence from SLA, and I wasn’t sure how things would play out with my sub.
Moodle was helpful in automating my class, but the substitute was, shall we say, “colorful.”
While that could be seen as working for me in that my students heralded my return, the loss of face time, of structure, of concrete learning in my absence was worrisome.
While I’m uncertain of the degree to which I should accept the truthfulness of their statements, my students reported the substitute teacher said that iPods were outlawed in the city of Philadelphia, that working in groups was not allowed (I left a group assignment and outlined it as such in my lesson plans) and that moodle was off limits.
I hate leaving my kids with anyone else. It comes with the vibe of teaching the “Classroom of Love.” Still, I should be able to. The tools exist. In many lessons, I approach the goal of facilitating self-directed learning over simply teaching.
Why, then, does leaving the room to a substitute create the havoc it does? The substitute teacher was a former full-time educator, she has had her own classroom. As such, the execution of the lesson plan should have been simple and effective. Though across the country, I was still facilitating. And yet.
The system was broken somewhere. That’s my initial response. Further consideration pushes me to think that perhaps the teacher, the actual person, is of more importance than thought. The tools, the collaboration, the self-direction – all tied up with the presence of the teacher.
Is this true? Poke holes.
More later.

A classroom pushes upon a teacher a daily, sometimes hourly, choice – say what my big boy brain knows is right or hand control over to 5-year-old me.
One of what I hope are a multitude of reasons I am entrusted with the growth and development of young minds is my proclivity to listening to my big boy brain. Mocking a student’s ideas would undermine what we’re (teachers and students) all in the classroom to do – build, challenge and support. It would also invalidate whatever community or trust has been created in the classroom.
The same is to be said of a faculty meeting. We’re in the room to improve how we put our axioms into practice. Again, the big boy brain is the tool of choice. Tearing down a colleague’s idea in a way that also calls into question the integrity or ability of that colleague would open the door to me teaching in isolation – and not by choice.
I preface with these statements because it gets to the meat of what’s been troubling me about James Farmer’s post “A Con-Job?” Farmer takes issue with the axioms on which EduCon 2.0 is built. More specifically, he seems to take issue with the semantics of those axioms.
Though EduCon is to take place at my school, I’ve little interest in arguing for or against Farmer’s thinking (others are involved in that discussion). My interest is really in the tone of the post.
It’s a cat post. It’s talking about someone and then pretending you weren’t when they walk up. Most importantly, it’s not helpful. That’s what gets stuck in my craw. Farmer’s tone is one of degradation. It does not strike the reader as a post interested in discourse, but of one interested in disarming. Were a colleague to “poke holes” in an argument of mine or of a peer using words and phrases like “codswaddle” and “No shit, Sherlock” the conversation would be over. Though it could be argued an axiom should make one respond with such an Arthur Conan Doylian invocation of the vernacular.
It could be argued the post was not meant for discussion, but then why choose a global forum?
It could be argued that Farmer was unaware of the tone of the post. This is unlikely from someone whose own axiom states:

“Too often we hold back users through unnecessary constraints when we could be encouraging expression, exploration and achieving far greater success through incorporating subversion.”

An “unnecessary constraint” exists in Farmer’s tone. Rather than welcoming forthright debate, he chooses language that operates more on a level of mockery. Any hopes of an elevated argument are lost in his eliciting of ire and emotion. This is bad design. To be sure, Farmer has incorporated subversion, so long as there’s such a thing as self-subversion.

So, a bit’s happened since last I posted. If you permit, a bit on my personal life. I’ll get back to the professional hobnobbery soon.

Three weeks ago, I received an e-mail, now I live in Philadelphia and start tomorrow with the gang at the Science Leadership Academy. The last few weeks have been some of the most trying and growth forcing of my life. Tonight, I sit in the living room of a new colleague who is giving me shelter after my initial hopes of an apartment fell through waiting for the first home-cooked meal in over three weeks.
Tomorrow, I visit the wonderful people of the central office of the Philadelphia public schools and work out exactly how I’ll be securing my emergency certification.
After the day is done, I’ll be signing a lease and moving in to a new apartment.
The process of packing up my life, bidding farewell to my Floridian friends, telling my students, working out out-of-state certification, has been trying.
With even the little perspective that one day in Philly has offered, it is a grand and exciting adventure that I’ve embarked upon.
New students, new peers, new tools, a new city (I’m all about listing at the moment) – they await me on this new horizon.
One of the aspects that interests me is the continued communication that will happen between my students in Florida and I. Through this blog, my teacher myspace page, e-mail and ANGEL, we will be able to participate and educate one another from afar. I don’t have a clear picture of what that will entail, but I know I look forward to the new lexicon to be formed by all parties.
For now, I prepare for the coming day and credit my arrival for the good fortune of the Phillies this afternoon. I wonder if I can take them all the way to the World Series.

After a week and a half of engaging kenesthetic activities. I changed directions with my students today. We talked. That was it. We talked. They wrote, they thought and we talked.
The opening question – their bellwork, what got the ball rolling – was a simple query, “Is diversity a good thing?”
Underneath, on the board, read the parenthetical note, “If you do not know the definition of ‘diversity,’ look in your dictionary.”
Let me say this before moving on – they actually looked in the dictionary. Even better, at tables where both students were stymied as to the denotative meaning of the word, I watched as one table partner waited patiently (not getting off task) for the other person to finish with their Webster’s work so they could have a full understanding. It really is an amazing thing to see such dedication to getting it right.
As is oft my role, when they had written their initial thoughts, I played devil’s advocate depending on the majority’s opinion. It really was some fantastic discussion.
At the end of 7th period, Jamie announced to the class, “This class made me think some things that I didn’t think before.” Any educator knows it’s not often that you get a child to realize, let alone pronounce, a paradigm shift.
One of the places a few of the discussions wound around to was shoes. I polled the class on an acceptable maximum amount for an 8th grader to spend on a pair of shoes. We had been talking footwear as an example of following the crowd rather than one’s one drum. Jordan’s were the favorite though none of my students was alive to see MJ play live. The mean acceptable price was around $110.
We talked about why brand names were “important” and whether or not acquiring one’s clothing from Wal-Mart was a mark of shame. The whole thing set me to thinking about where to take the discussion next. Not with every class, just the ones who showed interest. After a little reflection, here’s what I’ve got:

1. Each student picks a country (most likely a Third World counry).
2. They use the CIA World Factbook to find: children per capita, average annual income per capita, possibly mortality rate per capita
3. Each student then finds the retail price for each item it took to prepare him/her for school that day. (This would include hygeine products, et al.)
4. The student finds the total cost of being him/her and multiplies it x7 to get the cost per week.
5. The student then compares the findings.

The question is – what do they do with this info.? I’m sure it will be eye-opening, but what real purpose can they put it to? Where do they go after they realize “what it takes to be them?”
Anxious for thoughts and suggestions. Anyone have a class they’d like to have compare themselves to mine?
More later.

It’s only been five days and my room smells like stale coffee again. I’m not certain I can’t say the same for the inside of my body as well.

I’m finally keeping up with my feeds again, and reading some great stuff. For whatever reason, I can’t access twitter via G-chat. Luckily, I’ve got twitbin to keep me connected.

My kids this year are tremendous. I’ve almost 120 students and they have each impressed me in some way already. I’m trying to make at least two calls home each night – positive calls.

Two nights ago, I called and spoke to a mother to tell her how impressed I was that her son didn’t miss a beat after being out sick for a day on the first week. She told me she had already seen an improvement in self-confidence after three days and that her son had begged to go to school with a fever the day he was out. I thanked her for saving us from and endemic before I hung up the phone.

I feel like we’re all on our game even more than last year. We started with a non-traditional open house. I’m teaching Grades 8 and 10 this year. Rather than rotating parents and students through each classroom and having them listen to teacher presentations that were remarkably similar, we set up paperwork in the literacy center and all of the teachers were available to talk in the common area. Here’s the key, we made it a potluck dinner.

Some people on campus felt slight trepidation over whether or not our parents would show, let alone bring a dish to share. Their concerns were not without reason; our first year, about 7 familes showed up for our Open House. This year, we were only missing 7 families out of the 8th grade! It was tremendous. I got to shake each student’s hand, find out a little about them and eat brownies. It’s not a perfect world, but it’s close to it.

This first week has been dedicated to class/family building and policies and procedures. Today, we wrap up the Coat of Arms project procured from Erin Gruwell. The first day, they were quiet and not too engaged. It was a slow start. Today, as the deadline hung in front of them, students who were already finished sat next to students who were a little behind and helped search for and cut out images that symbolized their goals, achievements and things/people of value.

I have been operating at 11 for the entire week. I had also forgotten how exhausting teaching is when you do it right. I haven’t had the energy to go for a run after the marathon that is the school day. But, I wouldn’t have it any other way. This weekend’s agenda? Sleep. Maybe a little response to some entry and exit tickets.

Lesson plans? I’ve got the next two weeks planned out. It’s a weird feeling.

More later.

I sent a package to a friend of mine yesterday. He’s heading into his first year of teaching and I want to give him all of the support I can. It wasn’t until I jumped online and read a column from the paper back home that I realized the package I sent was intellectually racy.
Inside, it held a copy of The Essential 55 by and Life’s Greatest Lessons by Hal Urban. Both are books that saw me through my first years of teaching and to which I continue to turn. According to the column, though, one of the leaders of my district worries that The Essential 55 could be taken as condescending. Ron Clark is white, his students when he taught in Harlem were mainly African American and Latino.
Apparently, Clark was on the shortlist of keynote speakers at our back-to-school meeting. Last year’s speaker was Willard Daggett and the year before that was Erin Gruwell.
According to the column, and I’m not taking any of it as gospel, the district administrator had reservations about Clark speaking because he thought it could be taken as condescending to listen to stories of how Clark took his students from Harlem on horizon-expanding field trips. Clark’s efforts to teach etiquette in preparation for a trip to a formal restaurant reportedly found a particular sticking place in the administrator’s craw. Lyons implies the administrator believes Clark’s speech is condescending because he is a white teacher who was working mainly with students who didn’t look like him. I’m not sure what to make of it or how those beliefs would reflect on my own teaching.
Two things are happening here that have me frustrated.
One, I’m none-too-impressed with Lyons’ reporting. The column could have been held for next week in order to include the asst. superintendent’s side of the story. As it reads now, the column is another in a growing collection of pieces that makes teachers and the school district feel as though they are at odds with the press.
The other element of contention is with the idea that the central office wasn’t immediately forthcoming with the details.
Again, all we have to go on is what Lyons saw fit to print, but the idea that the district’s spokesman tried to sidestep the issue at fist blush isn’t exactly going to make any inroads toward a strong relationship between the district and the press. This is to say nothing of the fact that the column was going to run with or without the administrator’s quote, so it makes more sense to be open on the front end than to have to clean up after the parade has passed by.
From both sides, we (community members and district employees) need sincerity over spin.
More later.

From Darren Kuropatwa:

I want to be in that classroom as a student and as a teacher!

It’s been too long since I last posted. Not on purpose. I flew out to Long Beach directly after the Denver conference and jumped right in with the Freedom Writers Foundation. Tuesday, we wrapped up the July Freedom Writers Teacher Institute.
Twenty-four teachers ventured to Long Beach, CA for 5 days of truly empowering collaboration. I was fortunate enough to be part of June’s Institute as well. Thus far, I’ve had the chance to meet each of the teachers going through the program including the frenetic bunch that with whom I went through.
Something is truly energizing about bonding with 20-some people with the same heart for kids.
The ties are truly amazing.
When I returned to Sarasota last October from my turn at the Institute, my friends and colleagues were eager to hear about my trip. The interest was strong and the questions the same, “So, what was it like?” “What did you guys do out there?” “What was Erin like?” even “Was it fantastic?”
I stumbled around like a zombie when I returned home. I was able to chalk it up to jetlag, but it was something more than that.
Every once in a while, I need to be reminded of why I’m a teacher, of the sense of purpose I that motivated me to enter the profession.
As it turns out, I didn’t become a teacher to help students incorporate technology in their learning. I don’t know that I even became a teacher to give kids the chance to work and think collaboratively. Hard as it is to believe, it wasn’t to administer standardized tests or bring up flagging scores.
It actually all comes down to showing up everyday to show kids they have they have power, choices, ability and promise when they think that they do not.
I realize the details of the process are more intricate and the path much more winding than the idealism of my purpose appears to acknowledge, but I’ve got to remember that’s where I’m rooted.
I had a chance during this last session to meet teachers who are truly amazing in their love and passion for helping their kids. Time and again, though, I heard these same teachers say they were unworthy or not up to snuff.
We cannot allow for the perpetuation of a system that takes its most dedicated workers and breaks them and makes them feel they are less than.
It’s a big system, widely fractured. Still, when the last FWTI is complete, 150 teachers will have been trained and connected, creating a nationwide network of support and activism.
Many students have walked through my classroom door bruised or broken by what life has thrown at them. Though their maturity may mask and delay the effects, the same is happening to teachers.
Often, when we speak of teacher attrition, it is in reference to the difficulty of replacing them with new hires. Our focus must be on retention. How do you keep a great teacher in the classroom?
More later.

[Live Blogged]

Kelly King, Principal
Dawn Ryan, Teacher
Boulder Valley Schools

Doing personal intros. Just got a tease of brain research. I’m feeling a little excited.

Showing a cartoon, “I need you to line up by attention span.”

Telling a story by grown men to illustrate differences between boys and girls. I’m engaged. Boys throwing darts at each other in the dark.

Using cooperative learning to share brain research. My fact, “Boys get bored more easily than girls, requiring more varied stimulation to keep them attentive.”

Just talked about the use of music as a buffer between conversations.

Stress hormones “coritzol(sp?)” go up when you’re low on the pecking order.

“PET scans show the resting female brain is as active as the male brain working on a problem.”

This creates different tendancies in motivational patterns between male and female brains.

Going to talk about male and female brains definitively for the purpose of making points.

“There are actual physical structural differences between the male and female brains.”

Obj:
1. “at-riskness” among boys
2. understand chem. and struc. differences between male and female brains.
3. learn about effective inst. practice for addressing brain needs of both boys and girls.

Girls are outperforming boys in all industrialized countries in reading literacies.

(me – exam Phoenix’s writing scores by gender)

Showing data on improvement of boys’ scores since the school began focusing on boys.

They were in the Newsweek article “The Boy Crisis.”

“With Boys and Girls in Mind” Education Leadership, Nov. 2004. – great stats. on boy achievement.

Collaborative investigation of a fact that we find interesting. Partner is “take the answers down 5 ‘whys’.” (me – I want this slideshow)

For every 100 girls…

…suspended from school, there are 250 boys.
…expelled from school, there are 335 boys.
…who earn a masters degree, there are 62 males.

“Just the Facts” cards?

Sit and Get is tolerated by the neurological make-up of girls.
Biology is for cavemen. Sociology is advanced.

Key Brain Differences Impacting Learning:
New Yorker cover with “make-up” of teen brain.

Verbal-Spatial Difference: females have more coritcal areas in brain for verbal thinking. More resources for putting emotions into words.
Males more spatial thinking cortical areas. Males may need to prime pump before jumping in to descriptive writing. Females may need to hold model to get to thinking about concepts like rotating things in space.

Memory and Sensory Difference: Girls sing in tunes 6x more often. More boys are prone to color-blindness. Females see sharper more vivid color, more sensitive touch and acute sense of taste. This goes back to survival. Male better are depth perception, tracking objects through space, better at navigating through spatial areas. You recall an event using the senses you collected it with. Prime the pump differently to get more detail.

Frontal Lobe Development: develops in mid-20s for females, early 30s for males. Suppresses impulsive behavior. This is part of writing and risk-taking behaviors.

Cross-Talk Between the Hemispheres: Females have 20% more thickening between corpus colosum than males. More nerves, more communication between hemispheres. Male brain compartmentalizes and lateralizes brain activity. Female brain disperses activity around the brain to solve the same problem. When there’s a learning problem, it’s more difficult for the male brain to delegate problems. This points to stroke recovery and females regaining speech function better. Males tend to operate more in the left hemisphere, females in right hemisphere. Right side thinks more about problems and anxieties. 75% of divorces are initiated by females. Male brain is more learning fragile (disabilities). Female brain more emotionally fragile (anxiety, eating disorders, depression). Compartmentalization can lead to boys focusing on one thing and blocking other input out.

Natural Aggression: Testosterone (males), Oxytosin (bonding hormone) (females), oxytosin spikes in males during sex then goes back down again. Oxytosin inspires girls to want to be liked, fit in, belong. Boys have less oxytosin which creates a disconnect between boy investment in school.

Neural Rest States: Boys are gone when they go there. Girls can still be intaking a little bit. Might as well be talking to a wall at this point with boys.

Need natural light for good brain chemistry.

Book Suggestions:
Action-Packed Classrooms, Summerford (K-5)
Learning with the Body in Mind, Jensen
Action Strategies…, Wilhelm

Asked fourth grade writing students to act out the differences between “editing” and “revising” without speaking. Leader was responsible for interpreting movements.

What a complete sentence is: Took sentence strips, color coded nouns, verbs and finishers. Gave each of 5 groups a bunch of possibilities with a “Bank of Punctuation.” Gave kids 5 minutes to build complete, perfectly-punctuated sentences. Had to explain, “why they needed a comma or an exclamation point instead of a period.”

(me – audience is entirely engaged!)

Boys have less access to sensory details. This makes it more difficult for them to integrate those details into their writing.

Inverse relationship between quality of illustration and volume (quality?) of writing.

Bring in music to create a mood, think of colors that would create a mood and THEN put that mood into words. Need to do more priming of the pump for boys.

Putting vocab. words to music. Spelling words with elbows and then backsides. (hilarious!)

Too many words make the ideas too difficult. 8 purposes of writing simplifies things. Give them right visual-spatial tools to kids for the job you’re trying to get them to do. Visual construct must match intended verbal output.

Video games give things a better safety for pecking order movement.

Throw gender grouping into small grouping every once in a while. Expand topics that appeal to boys. Stop censoring boys interests.

“A good book for a boy is one he wants to read.” (Moloney, 2002)

In writing classroom, use “crappy prompts” to get kids to make writing their own.

“If the bum is numb, the brain is the same.”

I’m Glad I’m a Boy, I’m Glad I’m a Girl (1970)

“Me Read? No Way!” – Ontario Provincial Government