Category: Post-A-Day

Doing the Thing Matters (14/365)

a figure running toward the horizon on a damp street
Photo by lucas Favre on Unsplash

Friday night I ran 1.3 miles at 10 PM. If you are thinking, “That is a short distance to run,” or “That is a late run,” you are correct. I’d visited with friends and had an impromptu game night and got home late. It wasn’t until I was in the house that I realized I hadn’t run.

Normally, this would not be a problem. The majority of Fridays in my life have passed without me heading out on a run. This year, though, my running goal is to run every day. Up until Friday, I’d kept the streak going.

Looking at the clock and checking the temperature Friday, I was faced with the first of what will be many chances to actively decide not to be active.

1.3 miles. It might be my shortest clocked run since I started 17 years ago. Normally, I head out in running shorts, a running shirt, running socks, and, running shoes. In the cold weather months, that ensemble also includes a running cap, running jacket, running gloves, and running pants.

Friday, I went out in the work socks I’d worn that day, my undershirt, my running shoes, and my running cap. If you were a neighbor looking out the window, it would have been a sight to see. “Fran, I think Zac’s gone ’round the bend.”

When I got back, it occurred to me I might be as proud of that run as any other I’ve completed. The pride is in the doing of the thing. Identity is also wrapped up in there.

This is something I’m also re-learning in writing a post for every day of the year. Committing to the doing of the thing means having to actually do it. It’s not about word length or having the best idea ever. I’m writing because each time I put more characters on the screen, it’s more than would be there if I’d given in to procrastination or any of the number of reasons for last year’s meager showing in this space.

By committing to write and run every day, the quality of my runs and writings is going to be better than the nun my inertia would likely inspire.

Some of my miles this year will be lesser. Friday night showed there will be times I head out the door for no other reason than to say I’ve done it. I’m learning to accept this fact.
I’m also learning the regular doing of the thing inspires creativity.

Last Friday I opened the intervals app on my phone for the second time since purchasing it this summer. I love running intervals, but, in a normal year, I forgo them because they don’t rack up the miles in the same way a long run might in the same amount of time. The same is true of posts highlighting what I’m reading throughout the year. I’m less likely to write a blog post about a book I’ve finished when it’s the first post I’ve put up in more than a month.

In both cases, the fear of whatever the action is really mattering keeps me from the doing of the thing. I’m re-learning that none of it will matter if I don’t do it at all.

What I’ve Read: The Hate U Give (13/365)

Cover of the book, The Hate U Give

If we’re connected on Goodreads, you know I’ve set a challenge for myself of 52 books this year. If you follow me in this space, you know I’m all about the importance of educators talking about their reading and lives as literate citizens. As such, I’ll be talking a bit about my completed books as they stack up this year.

The Breakdown

I missed the first wave of The Hate U Give when it first came out because I figured it would be a book that asked for my attention. I wanted to be able to give it. Then, when I was finally able to make that space in my brain, the library’s hold list was full of folks who must have had similar ideas.

Finally, it was my turn last week and I started and finished the book in less than two days. I was worried it would take a lot longer because of the tears that kept coming in the first few chapters. I managed to get myself under control and loved every part of Angie Thomas’s book.

For those coming even later to the party, The Hate U Give is the story of Starr Carter and the aftershocks in her life after she witnesses her friend’s murder by a police officer during a traffic stop.

Thomas creates a world and characters that are consistently fully fleshed out. It’s an important feat for any author, but one all-the-more necessary given the short shrift marginalized characters get across so many popular texts. From Starr to her family to her friends, each character has fullness I wish I didn’t find as surprising in modern fiction, and this helped me feel compassion for nearly everyone in the story. No one is perfect, and everyone is worth knowing.

 

Why

The temptation here is to simply say – #WeNeedDiverseBooks, but I’ll go a bit further than that.

I picked up the book because I felt like I was missing out. I’d tell others to pick it up because of Thomas’s masterful conveyance of Starr’s emotional and intellectual reactions to the shooting, its fallout, and the questions it raises in her world. Even without the shooting, Thomas opens a window into code switching and its possible emotional toll.

Yes, I’d lobby hard to make sure students of all shades have access to this text. It might be just as important to make sure it finds its way into the hands of an equally vivid array of educators.

 

In the End

Sense finishing The Hate U Give I’ve been working to come up with a clear explanation of why I think this book affected me deeply. I think I’ve got it. Thomas’s writing never feels as though she’s writing against a narrative. Instead, from the first page, she says to readers “this is the world.” She does it with honesty as to ever-possible darkness, but also, with hope and belief in the agency of characters she clearly loves.

What Else I’ve Been Reading

  • This post from elementary teacher Jennifer Orr is a wonderful example of why I love reading her and her ability to give us a view into the lives of some of our youngest learners.
  • While Shana White‘s twitter feed is always on point, her blog posts like this one give are consistent gifts, building understanding of experiences much different from my own.
  • Sabrina Stevens’s post about the importance of the #MeTooK12 campaign is something I’d bring to any upcoming faculty meeting, along with the question, “What are we going to do?”

My Least Favorite EdTech Story of the Week (11/365)

I’ve been mulling over the story above since I heard it Thursday. The gist is different classrooms or schools are buying pouches and requiring students to put their phones in these pouches, which can’t be unlocked until the end of class or the school day. NPR’s Tovia Smith reports on the trend, and it’s not difficult to understand why it got picked up.

The story plays on educators’ worst fears – laziness, lack of student attention, fighting against social media, “addiction” to tech. They’re tropes, and the pouches are a novel iteration of signs like the ones below.$15 fine for cell phone use during class

The story also misses an opportunity of the sort outlets like NPR pride themselves on – having the better conversation. In improvisational theater, it’s called moving from A to C. At some point in her reporting, Smith says:

DeCopain says students are more engaged, and some are starting to see the virtue in the pouches – sort of.

The “virtue of the pouches”? Aside from what I hope will be the title of an animated film about world-saving kangaroos, this is where the story misses an opportunity. In these 5 minutes, there’s no mention of the virtue of helping students self-regulate, there’s no mention of the virtue of teachers leveraging the fact students are bringing their own computers to class, and there’s no mention of the virtue of teachers considering how these devices make questions like the featured practice problem “X to the third power minus 13-X” exceedingly irrelevant (if they ever were).

The only counterpoint the story is Cal State’s Larry Rosen warning restrictions like the pouches could inspire “massive anxiety”, because children are fragile. Rosen’s suggestion of “tech breaks” further paints the picture that smartphones only serve as a distraction and have no practical use in the classroom, an argument we should be done making at this point.

My entire experience listening to the story, all I could think was, “This is completely letting teachers off the hook from improving their practice as professionals in modern schools,” and “We’ve found another way to make schools like prisons.”

I’m not so ignorant as to expect edtech stories (pouch stories) like this won’t get picked up by even the most reputable of news organizations. I’m not yet willing to let go of an expectation of full, thoughtful, balanced reporting when a story has many perspectives.

Kangaroo standing in a clearing
Photo by Mark Galer on Unsplash

 

My Best Moment of the Week: Defying Expectations (12/365)

high jump mattress

It was a third grade classroom, and I was part of a team of folks walking through and looking for evidence of something or other. The problem with asking me to enter a classroom of students as an observer is my predilection to thinking kids are pretty amazing and worth conversing with.

“What are you learning about?” I asked a little guy toward the front of the room.

“Did my teacher send for you to come get me?”

It took all of three seconds to read the situation. Broken fragment of a pencil, nothing written on his paper while his classmates were at least half a page in, grimace on a face that’s wondering just how many shoes life has for the dropping. I’d inadvertently joined a slow-boil freakout just as it was reaching a simmer.

“I don’t even know your teacher, I am just here because I’m curious what you’re all working on. Oh, man, your pencil’s broken. Here’s my pen. Huh. I don’t know how to do this problem on your paper here.”

“Do you teach here?”

“I work in all of the schools.”

“What do you teach?”

“I’m an English teacher. It’s been a while since I’ve done some of the math like what’s on your paper. Will you help me remember how to figure these things out? Unless you don’t know how to do it. If you don’t, that’s cool. I bet we could figure it out.”

“Um.”

“Like this one, how would you figure this one out? It doesn’t look like a usual math problem…”

“Because it’s algebra.”

“Oh, what’s that mean?”

“Like, you just…” and he kept talking and explaining. The grimace retreating to the corners of his mouth, his shoulders lowering, examining my pen, doing a poor job of hiding his enjoyment of using a green pen to do math.

The exchange took 4 minutes. The unintended de-escalation wasn’t fueled by anything other than wanting this student to understand I wasn’t the adult he expected me to be.

More often than I’d expect, my work includes being happier and sillier than students expect. I’m consistently taken aback in the powerful trust we can build with students when we show them we are willing to listen.

That’s the opportunity each of us who has the privilege to working with children has each day. We get to change expectations by raising expectations. We get to throw joy where anger or apathy is expected. We get to be kind.

We have the exceptional challenge every day of being better versions of ourselves every day than our students expect us to be.

If I Were Your Principal Today (10/365)

Storm Clouds

Earlier today, I posted the following tweet:

I’m struggling to come up with something that makes me feel like I’m responding to the most current rash of hurtful, ignorant, racist rhetoric coming out of the President. Following my anger is not how I choose to use my minutes. I started thinking about what I’d do if I were a principal in a school today. Whatever I come up with is imperfect. It is better, I hope, than nothing.

First, all of this is predicated on the existence of positive, non-threatening, mutually-respectful relationships with adults and children. If you’re not doing that work, then we’ll have that conversation soon.

Presupposing those relationships, I’d do the following:

  1. Send/post a school-wide message letting the adults in the building know I realize some of the most recent national news has been difficult to take and let them know my door is open for anyone who needs some time and space to process. I’d also ask for the same understanding for our students.
  2. I’d have a prioritized set of students with whom I check in. Given the last 24 hours, this would pay special attention to immigrant and migrant students – specifically those from Haiti and African nations. Checking in wouldn’t be, “So, you scared?” Instead, something along the lines of, “Hi X, I’m really happy you’re here. How are you?” Then, I’d listen – really listen. In students where these students are the majority, we still know those most vulnerable to this rhetoric. Those would be my priorities. For students with whom I had less solid relationships, I’d make sure the adults within the building with whom those students are closest have a chance to check in.
  3. Realizing checking in is necessary but not sufficient, I’d reach out to the head of my school’s parent and family organization and ask how I can help set up workshops for parents and families on how to help students process living in the age of Trump. To do less than this would normalize this behavior.

Our students are watching. They are listening. Our inaction and silence are statements as powerful as any other.

Answer the Question You Were Asked (9/365)

hand raised in a crowd
Photo by Marcos Luiz Photograph on Unsplash

Preparing for a big presentation tomorrow, I was given the following advice, “Answer the question you were asked, not that question and the next one.”

My team and I will be reporting out on the work we’ve done reviewing and revising the state’s ELA academic standards over the last year. Given the lift of the project, we have had to make many decisions. The point of the advice was not to yammer on or take everyone down a rabbit hole they weren’t really interested in to begin with.

It has me thinking, though, about how we operate as teachers when students ask us questions. I remember teachers I’ve had and how we knew, in the event of a boring lesson or assignment, all we needed to do was pull the rip chord of a question and these teachers would help and clarify right up until the end of class.

Answer the question you were asked, not that question and the next one.

It’s strong advice for the classroom. It’s easy for us, as the more experienced learners in our disciplines and the designers of our students’ learning experiences, to anticipate what we thing their next questions will be. Each time we pre-emptively answer those questions, we  prevent our students from discovering answers for themselves. We also eliminate the need for them to be curious and consider exactly what they want and need to know next. We do an end run around students’ curiosity.

It is as though we’ve said, “Let me go ahead and ask everything and learn everything for you. Your job is to copy down my learning.”

The approach makes sense. This is the easiest and most straightforward way to transfer the records of knowledge. It has little or no chance of actually transferring the knowing.

This rule has a complement. Ask only the questions worth thinking about.

Putting two fractions on a board, telling students one of the fractions is larger than the other, and then listing the rules they need to know this is true is a much cleaner approach. It requires compliance and practice problems. Asking a student which of a pair of fractions is larger after this will only require them to look at what you’ve told them. Ask them why, and they’ll quote you to you.

Putting two fractions on the board and asking the room which one is larger and then being silent, though, that is messy work. When the classroom decides on the correct answer and replying to them, “How do you know?” Following up those answers with, “So, what are some things we think are true when one fraction is larger than another?” well, that might take all class (or longer).

At the end, though, one of these approaches will yield empowered mathematical thinkers. The other will get you compliant note takers.

Answer the question you were asked, not that question and the next one. Ask only the questions worth thinking about.

These Words Make Me Think Less of You (8/365)

Our kids.
These kids.
Our population.
The kind of kids we work with.
These kinds of kids.
Kids like ours.

Any of the above preceded by:

Well,…
What you have to realize/think about/understand about…
Especially when you consider…
The thing about…
Taking into account the kinds of homes ______ come from…
Considering…
Given what _____ go through…

Such talk robs our students of their personhood, their individuality, and their right to the best learning experiences we know how to create. These words are often followed by rationalized arguments for keep the top-shelf teaching for the other kids, the ones we refer to by name.

[Comments Requested] We’re Building a Thing (7/365)

noise canceling headphones
Photo by Malte Wingen on Unsplash

In a country where more than 90% of citizens are products of public schools, educators deserve quality podcasts beyond murder investigations, cults, and politics.* So, we’re building something for your ears. Starting in a few weeks, Kristina Ishmael, Adina Sullivan-Marlow and I will be launching the All the Learning podcast. If the name doesn’t suffice, we’re going for a tone of levity and an all-encompassing topic spread.

All the Learning will also be a podcast about education and learning with an educational point of view – we’re all dedicated to constructivist, constructionist pedagogy and we place a high value on learner inquiry.

We will also be putting an intense premium on practical conversations and research. A personal goal for the podcast will be to make sure listeners can finish each episode with a practical idea they can take back to their classrooms or wherever they’re facilitating learning. We’ll also be reaching out to education researchers, learning scientists, and those folks who talk about education and get talked about in education, but don’t necessarily get to the talking to.

We’ve a few starting interviews lined up to get us ready for launch, and we’re putting togethe lists of topics and names. We’re also hoping for your help. I sent up the social media signal a few days ago and got some of the answers posted below. We’re hoping you can add to the conversation by posting in the comments lists of people, topics, research, and questions you’d like us to tackle throughout our episodes.

From Adam Provost:

1. What schools / states are running personalized learning plans well? 2. Projected impact on your school / state from the US Dept of Ed’s funding cuts and agenda? 3. How many schools have built a schedule / means / ways to promote interdisciplinary learning? 4. How do we promote the conversation to fund rebuilding public schools (that need facility improvements) aka when will youth be as important as building new sports stadiums? 5. How many schools have robust advisory and guidance programs that actively outreach to families… and what’s that structure / staffing ratio / work teams look like? 6. Define ‘innovation’ and what that really looks like at your school. I’ll add 20 or 30 more when you’re ready…

From James Sanders:

Preparing students for solving the future problems of the world.

*We love all those podcasts too.

What I’ve Read: All the Pretty Horses (6/365)

Cover of Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses

If we’re connected on Goodreads, you know I’ve set a challenge for myself of 52 books this year. If you follow me in this space, you know I’m all about the importance of educators talking about their reading and lives as literate citizens. As such, I’ll be talking a bit about my completed books as they stack up this year.

The Breakdown

The first book I’ve completed this year was Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses. My only other experience with McCarthy was his Blood Meridian, which I “liked” but which also made me weary going into Horses because Meridian has some pretty intense violence throughout.

Horses is a different sort of western. The tale of John Grady Cole and his decision to set out from his Texas town on horseback for Mexico in 1949. McCarthy’s prose has struck me as powerful and sparse in each of his books I’ve read so far. At one point in Horses I said aloud to myself, “I’m glad he’s read Hemingway.”

My initial description of Horses might be that it’s a coming of age story, but it’s not quite that. At the close of the book, Grady remains who he was at the beginning. Instead, McCarthy adeptly shows us and Grady what it means to be himself across situations and circumstances beyond his small-town upbringing.

Why

I picked up All the Pretty Horses for two reasons. The first is availability. As part of a 40th birthday present, some friends and I gave my friend him all the National Book Award winners in fiction for each of the years she’s been alive. Horses won in 1992. I’d closed out the year with 2017’s winner Sing, Unburied, Sing and had read 2016’s recipient Underground Railroad. Because Sing and Railroad centered around African American protagonists, I was curious to see what through line, if any, I could detect in the Award’s panelists’ tastes across books. Wonderful writing is the answer.

My second reason was one of my best friend’s esteem for the book. He’s one of the best writers I know, and so I trust his tastes. I’ve also had a lifelong curiosity with the writers read by writers I read.

In the End

Several nights last week saw me awake much later than I’d intended because I was wrapped in the voice of this book. Not only is Grady a character I enjoyed following, but McCarthy creates a narrator at once removed and invested in his protagonist. This mix of care and every-possible demise made Horses difficult to put down and satisfying to finish.

What Else I’ve Been Reading

My Best Moment of the Week: Picking Line Leader (5/365)

people standing in line on a paved lotMy best moment from this week happened this morning. I was in one of our district’s kindergarten classrooms as the school day began. As the students entered the room, they were greeted by their teacher, but something was different from every other classroom entrance routine I’ve seen this year. The students entered, put up their things in the cubbies and then made choices as to what they were going to do to start the learning for the day. They were all over the classroom, all practicing their reading, all talking. It was beautiful. And, as much as that was lovely, it wasn’t the best moment.

The best moment was when the teacher picked the popsicle stick from her cup to announce the day’s line leader. For the uninitiated (or those who have forgotten), line leader is a pretty big deal in elementary school. If you’ve got a lifelong thirst for power, it probably started with your first term as line leader.

Whereas every other teacher I’ve ever seen select the day’s line leader has simply picked a name, said the name, and moved on, this teacher did so much more.

“The name I’ve picked has one syllable,” she announced. The students, at this point assembled on the carpet, hushed for a moment as they thought. Then, without prompting, one student popped to his feet. Then a girl joined him. Finally, another boy stood. I realized, these were the three students in the room with single-syllable names.

Okay. That would be enough. She wasn’t done.

The teacher asked the class if the students were correct. As a class, they practiced saying each student’s name, checking to see if it was, in fact, a single syllable. Each was.

The teacher then asked the students to look at the alphabet on the back wall with each student’s name listed below its first initial. She went through each of the three students, asking the class, what letter their names were under. The class answered.

“Okay,” the teacher said, “this name has three letters.”

After a second or two, several students started voicing their guesses. They were correct.

She wasn’t done. One of the standing student’s names had 5 letters. “How many letters does her name have,” the teacher asked the class.

“Five!”

“Correct. Is that more or less than three?”

A longer pause, “MORE!”

She did the same thing with the third student, asking if his name of four letters was more or less than a name of three. The students all knew and each answer was a celebration.

The entire thing was a celebration, and it only took three minutes. In those three minutes, this teacher was able to ask her students to practice at least five different skills of varying difficulties, but all essential to kindergarten learning. She didn’t say, “Let’s practice syllabication,” or “Now we’re going to think about numbers.” She just gave them small, contextualized opportunities to put into practice the skills they’d learned together earlier in the year.

This otherwise perfunctory task was seen as an opportunity for learning. It was a master stroke by a professional focused on squeezing the fun and the learning out of each moment.