Category: TIK365

Things I Know 185 of 365: I wonder what’s next

That’s one small step for man…

– Buzz Aldrin

So what’s next?

As Atlantis made its way to the heavens, I felt a bit sad. This was it.

The feeling is somewhat akin to what happens in my brain the day after completing a marathon.  No other races on the horizon, a lack of purpose starts to circulate.

Sure, there’ talk of manned flight to Mars and landing on an asteroid. I all in favor of those. Thing is, I am also supremely confident those things will happen in my lifetime. Years of watching science fiction movies and television have made these goals seem almost expected. They are the logical next steps to where we have been thus far.

I want the illogical next steps.

A moment passed us by when Atlantis launched and no leader took to the podium to say, “Here’s what’s next. I know it sounds perfectly impossible, but we are in the business of the impossible.”

People don’t need permission to dream, but encouragement isn’t going to hurt.

Things I Know 184 of 365: I’ve got too many friends and not enough words

Words! Words! Words! I’m so sick of words!

– Eliza Doolittle

I might be in a little over my head.

I just woke up my phone to check the time.

Twenty-one people are waiting for my next move on Words with Friends.

Every time I get the chance, I chip away at my waiting games. On a good run, I can knock out five turns before the rest of life jumps in. But they keep. Coming. Back.

They keep challenging me.

I’m not even sure how it got this bad. I remember sharing my user name with maybe three people, never 21.

I’m not even very good. Of the 21 games queued up, I’m losing around 80% of them. Still, I play.

Then there are the invites at the end of the game. Just as my phone alerts me to my defeat and I click “re-match,” that same friend begins yet another game with me. In the face of such double booking, a rational person would resign from one game and keep the other game in play.

That’s just what they want you to do. Admit defeat before every playing a move? No, sir, thank you very much. If I’m to lose, it will be a beautiful and bloody battle.

Then there are the cheaters.

You know who you are…cough…Robbie…cough. Cheaters I’ve perhaps taught for two years in a row and with whose vocabularies I am well familiar. “Shoon?” Really?

Again, the rational person would resign the game knowing their vocabulary was reduced to a switchblade in the face of the nuclear armament of online Words with Friends cheating sites.

Not I.

For losses to a cheater are the sweetest losses of all. If I lose to a cheater, I can tell myself that I would otherwise have won, which, ipso facto, makes me the winner…who lost.

I’m not losing these games because I’m stupid. I’ve got words in my head. I’ve been gearing up for all 21 of these battles since I was in middle school and thought accusing friends of having “minuscule vernaculars” was the best blend of adolescent humor and linguistic insult one was likely to find.

At issue is my lack of strategy. I’m smart, but don’t play smartly. I like the words too much to toss them around like taudry tiles which have no more use to me than to help me score. Oh, I’ll score, but when I do, it will be because I’ve shaped and sculpted my letters into a Monet of syllables. Grown men will weep and children will feel a deep and abiding sense of hope.

And then, I will lose.

Things I Know 183 of 365: It’s entirely possible I’ve never thought of what circle you’re in

Will the circle be unbroken?

– Ada R. Habershon

My junior year of college, Katy and I were in an argument. I didn’t know it at the time. The details remain a bit sketchy, even now. I do remember a discussion of being best friends and what it meant to me compared to what it meant to her. The values we each put on the idea of best friends versus friends differed.

I’d honestly never considered how those terms might have differing meanings in my life. I certainly had paid no mind to the idea that these terms might hold deep and abiding meaning to someone else. I learned a lot from that argument. I felt parts of how I see the world shift by the end of it.

Luke and I have known one another since I was in eighth grade. We have never lived in the same town. He is one of the people I know I can call who, if need be, will have his flight booked before we hang up. Our interactions, our social networking, take place with remarkable inconsistency.

Last week, Google threw its hat into the social networking ring with the release of Google+. Each day, I’ve been receiving e-mails notifying me of my addition to this or that person’s circles. It’s restarted the 21st century game of categorizing those I know into lists or groups or circles.

“This person is connected to you,” says the site, “wouldn’t you like to cement for us exactly how y’all know each other?” (I imagine Google+ to speak to me with a folksy southern twang.)

More than a few of the conversations feeding through my Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts have centered around how people were organizing their circles. They wanted to import contact groups from their Gmail accounts or replicate their lists from Facebook. Now, they needed to come up with a whole new version of how they were connected. Some, I’d imagine, even split-screened their monitors to make sure the connections were the same across platforms. I’d hate for Katy and me to be best friends in Illinois, but only friends in Philadelphia.

I’ll admit to currently having a dozen circles in my account.

The whole thing began to feel like an empty version of that argument with Katy 10 years ago.

I see the meaning of grouping those to whom I am connected online. Putting all the names in one place at one time makes the collective that much more daunting. It has value on the site, but that value isn’t something I carry around with me in life. When I get the chance to share a meal with Bud, I don’t think to myself, “Bud lives in my friend circle as well as my PLN circle, I will restrict conversation accordingly.”

The best moments are when those circles break, when the people with whom I’ve forged relationships exist in the ever-shifting cloud of relativity, when how I know you isn’t a categorical imperative.

Things I Know 182 of 365: Sometimes, I’m ready to move on to the next discussion

Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument an exchange of ignorance.

– Robert Quillen

I won’t call it an argument.

What I got into this evening that lasted from the beginning of dinner, through settling the check, the drive to the movie theater and up to the point at which we took our seats for the previews was a discussion.

We discussed education.

In a party of 9, my friend and I ignored all others and searched for common ground.

He discussed from a deficit model.

He discussed the importance of standardized tests.

He discussed there were far more teachers who should be fired than were excellent.

He discussed end-of-year assessment and the ability to write a well-reasoned essay as the marks of a highly-qualified teacher.

I argued against it all.

I argued against it all except the very last point.

I wanted to. In my argument for project-based assessment, for the value of asking students what they can create and teaching to their passions, for the idea that having students read from textbooks precludes the idea that a teacher has created a constructivist classroom – in all of this – I could not make my way to the argument that writing an essay should no longer be the measure.

This thought hung on the coatrack in the back of my mind as I attempted to make my exit from the discussion.

He wasn’t ready for the idea that what might deserve our focus is teaching students to make arguments, but that writing them down – on paper or screen – mightn’t need to be the standard by which we measure their rhetorical abilities.

It was incredibly frustrating to realize how many layers of discussion were necessary before I would be able to get to an idea I recognized as truly progressive.

I wanted to suggest having kids write with video integrating links, tags and annotations a la youtube videos could liberate voice, deepen understanding and lead to more dynamics arguments. I wanted to suggest that writing in words wasn’t native to the human experience, that doing something because it’s what’s been done for centuries isn’t answer enough.

Instead of this, I had a discussion I’ve had time and again regarding truths I take to be self-evident. It was a moment of frustration. I want to be having a better discussion based on a common belief that learning and adequate yearly progress are not the same thing. Tonight, I had hoped that our conversation of what education can be could come from a mutual belief that teaching is a respectable profession and that we must care for teachers as we would care for students. It turned out, we weren’t ready for the conversation.

I’ll find myself in some iteration of tonight’s conversation again (soon, I’m sure). I will listen and question and push with as much vehemence as I did tonight each time I’m allowed.

Still, in some moments, it would be nice if we all decided we were ready for the next big conversations.

Things I Know 181 of 365: Students need guidance, not oversight

When we want to develop meaning-making we run counter-clockwise to our instincts as teachers. We are explainers and our instincts tell us to make things simple and unambiguous. We must fight this.

– Grant Wiggins

Lady next to me at the coffee shop has concerns about a school that has 1-to-1 laptop program and no Emperor Palpatine-like oversight software.

“What if they get into trouble?” she asks.

“We help them get out of that. More importantly, we work to help them avoid it,” I answer.

I go on to explain the deep and complex discussions to be had around appropriate use policies and brainstorming problem situations into which students can get themselves.

She likes the idea of this, but remains concerned.

“It just feels like they’ll still get into trouble.”

They do.

I could chalk it up to them being kids, but that’s not quite why.

They’re people, you see, and prone to mistakes.

Walking this morning, I saw a man riding a bike in the wrong lane of a 2-lane street, talking on his cell phone. Time to review his appropriate use policies.

Last night, a woman backing out of a parking spot ran into and tipped over what I was told was a fairly expensive Dukati motorcycle. In a fair fight, the woman’s Prius would have lost by most measures. In this moment, it was too soon for the joke. She was reviewing her appropriate use policy in her mind.

Running along the path, I find a man who has decided to block traffic to stretch out his hamstrings. I checked the tiny pocket in my running shorts for an extra copy of the appropriate use policy.

I understand the coffee shop woman’s concern. Computers and the Interwebs offer tremendous potential for trouble. The best we can do is draw up a set of guidelines, review it with students and keep the dialogue open. It’s not the most we can do, but it is the best.

To impose draconian measures of Big Brotherly monitoring robs students of the chance to build internal structures and systems for monitoring and safety.

We will always be there to help, but like the parents of the man on the bike, we won’t be running alongside forever.

Things I Know 180 of 365: 5 PM is everyone else’s summer vacation

I was thinking that we all learn by experience, but some of us have to go to summer school.

– Peter De Vries

I’m out in Long Beach, CA for the month working with the Freedom Writers Foundation. While I’ll be helping to pull together a few exciting projects in my time here, today concluded with data entry.

A bit mundane, the data I’m entering is a necessary component of a project I’m working on. The project will end up being interesting, helpful and important. For now, though, I’m entering the addresses of 200 teachers into a spreadsheet.

I’ve entered data before. The data entry, in and of itself, didn’t stand out to me.

What stood out, what absolutely blew my mind was the fact that I stood up at 5:00 PM and walked away from my spreadsheet.

Alright, it was 5:13, but the point stands.

Between now and tomorrow morning, when I show up at the office, I’ll not need to, nor will I tempted to open that spreadsheet and continue working.

This is a foreign concept after 8 years of walking home, manilla folders of essays to grade in my bag or documents waiting when I logged in to Google Apps from my home computer.

In my first year of teaching, my friend Sarah, who had been in the game for a few years mocked me for taking student work home to grade.

“I’ve decided not to do that anymore,” she told me, explaining she kept her school and home lives separate where work was concerned. Grading was what her planning period was for. Anything that didn’t get done Monday could wait for Tuesday.

I attempted this tactic a few times throughout the years.

It never took.

To be the kind of teacher I needed to be and that my kids deserved meant sitting in my room or local coffee shop in my free time underlining, circling and commenting in margins.

I don’t have the exact math on this next claim. If I did, it would prove the claim false. So, from pure conjecture, let me suggest that my time grading, answering questions, reviewing drafts, planning units and lessons of study and collaborating with other teachers done outside of the school day throughout the school year would come close to the days I’d spend in the classroom during the 10-week break that has become summer vacation.

Though it was overwhelming at times, the teaching and learning I did outside of the classroom were always worth it. Writing narrative report cards at 2 AM turned out to be incredibly satisfying.

Having met hundreds of teachers around the country, I can say with an elevated degree of certainty, this is the life of a teacher.

It is not, I learned today, the life of many others. That kind of drive and dedication in most other fields evidences and intention to move up a corporate ladder. In teaching, it evidences an intention not to bury ourselves alive.

Turns out not everyone brings their work home with them. Feel free to raise your hand and bring this up the next time you hear someone justify homework as preparation for the “real world.”

Things I Know 179 of 365: Not all systems need disrupting

We’re flying in a Lockheed Eagle Series L-1011. Came off the line twenty months ago. Carries a Sim-5 transponder tracking system. And you’re telling me I can still flummox this thing with something I bought at Radio Shack?

– Richard Schiff as Toby Zigler in The West Wing

I think the man across the aisle from me wants our plane to crash. Just before takeoff, when the flight attendants were announcing the need to power down all electronic devices, I saw him select a playlist on his iPhone and slip the phone into his pocket.

A few hours into our flight and he’s still sitting across from me, still listening to his music…and we’re still in the air.

My phone is off, in my pocket.

It will stay there because I have been told that is where it should be.

Thirty minutes later, we’re still in the air, and guy-across-from-me is still listening to music on his phone.

It strikes me as counter to my nature that I don’t follow the evidence and have my phone out during the takeoff and touchdown.

I admit it seems highly unlikely that my phone, my Kindle or my iPod would take down this 757. If that were the case, I probably wouldn’t be allowed to have them on the plane in the first place.

But I don’t know.

And that’s the key.

I don’t understand the system. Aviation, engineering, electronics – all these are outside the areas of my expertise.

In this system, I have an amazing amount at stake. I am thoroughly invested and committed to its success.

Entire sub-systems and interactions are beyond my understanding. Thus, I keep my mouth shut. If I decided to study aeronautics, become familiar with everything involved in the process of moving a plane from one side of the country to another, then would I have a space to speak up.

When my life and the lives of others are on the line, it’s probably best not to disrupt a system I do not understand.

Things I Know 178 of 365: Report cards should be better

Zachary has been a joy to work with this year. I will miss him next fall.

– Mary Cavitt, my kindergarten teacher

From kindergarten forward, the majority of schools get progressively worse at telling students and parents what’s being learned and how well students are learning it.

A few days ago, my mom stumbled upon a folder marked “ZAC – School” while searching for immunization records.

Not the least of the documents in the folder were both my first and my last report cards as a K-12 student.

I found my final high school report card first.

When I saw it, my eyes flashed to class rank, then GPA, then a quick scan to remind me of my final courses and teachers.

A few pieces of paper later, 24 years after it was issued, I found my kindergarten report card.

It required a little more time for consumption. Nowhere did it tell me where I ranked among the other 5 and 6 year olds. I had no idea as to my kindergarten GPA either.

The only real use for the report card was a detailed accounting of my progression as a student throughout the year.

Groan.

I could remember every piece of information from that first year of K-12. I would be hard-pressed to recount half of 1% of anything covered in my senior macroeconomics class. I’d honestly forgotten I’d taken macroeconomics until I saw the report card.

In the comments section for each quarter, Mrs. Cavitt wrote a short message to my mom alerting her to my progress and letting her know I was being seen by my teacher.

In the “Comment Explanation” section of my senior report card – nothing.

As a kindergartener, I had little use for my report card. It was a document for the adults in my life to examine and use as a starting place for conversation.

In my later years, the report card held much value. It was a quarterly mile marker of my progress toward college and beyond. Still a communication between the adults in my life, it raised more questions than answers. I have no idea how I got that B in my first quarter of English IV, nor do I know what improved in the second quarter that led to an A.

I’m certain my parents asked questions on these very topics. I’m sure I stumbled through my answers and took stabs at the multitude of possible reasons for my grades.

I try to imagine, though, what would have transpired were I not as successful as a student.

If I’d been lost in the tall grass of high school with Cs, Ds and the occasional F, this report card would have served no purpose other than to reinforce my failures and dumbfound my parents.

If I’d not had such dedicated parents, the conversations would have stopped there and the frustrations would have continued to mount.

The modern middle and high school report card is an arcane relic made supremely ironic in light of the millions of dollars spent nationally in the name of gathering data.

I’m certainly aware of the systemic impediments in place, but improving communications with students and parents on individual learning need not include standardized tests and computer-generated reports.

At the end of my kindergarten year, in math, I could name the four basic shapes, count to 43, add, subtract, print my numerals and much more.

At the end of my senior year of high school, in math, I got a B.

Which measure focused on the learning?

Things I Know 177 of 365: It’s everyone’s idiot box

All television is educational television. The question is: what is it teaching?
– Nicholas Johnson

Being back in Illinois has meant an inordinate amount of television viewing. I have been known to marathon view entire runs of television shows from time to time, but those are usually through iTunes or Netflix.

No, being home has meant honest-to-goodness television (though I’m uncertain how much honesty or goodness I’ve been taking in.

Yesterday, this commercial for State Farm Insurance ran during a show I was watching with my mom:


“Why is it only the guys who get the cool stuff,” my mom asked.

“Because the women are out attending and rating the weddings of three strangers,” I explained, referencing the TLC program Four Weddings we were watching at the time.

I wasn’t worried that the men were able to afford the toucans and moose heads as their beleaguered wives looked on, because the husbands of the four brides competing on the show were looking on in a similar manner.


I’ve been away from broadcast television for a while. It’s nice to see were doing a better job of making everyone appear foolish.

Except Flo:

Things I Know 176 of 365: Classrooms must design away from anxiety

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,

Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not

even the best,

Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

– Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

If I were teaching teachers, I would have them read this Economist article examining a newly published German study showing a strong positive correlation between urban dwellers and high levels of anxiety.

We would discuss the study and its methodology. We’d work our way through a round of “I noticed…” “I wonder…” “What if…” and then someone would hopefully notice the smallish size of the German study. Perhaps a hand would be raised and a “yeahbut” would be voiced.

“What about this,” I would ask, sharing with the assembled teachers this 2009 New York Times Magazine article about Dr. Jerome Kagan’s decades-long research into the origins and possible causes of anxiety.

Kagan has been compiling evidence since the late 80s that shows a connection between anxiety in infants and continued anxiety in those same subjects as they move into childhood, adolescence and eventually adulthood.

These teachers and I would discuss Kagan’s theories regarding those who are “wired to worry.” Again, I would query them on what they noticed, what they wondered and their what ifs.

Using some intertextual analysis, we would then start to make inferred connections between Kagan’s work and that of Dr. Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, the author of the Economist study.

Wanting to learn alongside, I would posit the idea that one who is both wired for worry and raised in an urban environment would seem to have the proverbial deck stacked against him.

To this person, it would seem not only that the world is a highly unstable and difficult place, but that the environ within which he lives is only working to accentuate that instability. Despite his best intentions, this person will worry, doubt and second-guess more than his hypothetical twin separated at birth and raised in a nearby farm town.

Finally, to bring things back home, I would point these teachers to Sylvia Martinez’s reflections on a recent keynote by NYU Associate Professor Joshua Aronson. We would examine Aronson’s definition of the stereotype threat – being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one’s group.

Martinez writes:

Simply putting a box to mark gender, for example, at the front of a math test significantly changed test scores – for both men and women. Compared to a test where gender was not asked for, if gender was asked for at the beginning of a test, boy’s scores went up, girls’ scores went down. If gender was asked at the end, boys’ scores went down, girls’ scores went up.

And then we would discuss the implications of these three assembled pieces on the practice of the teachers in the room.

The idea of urban anxiety makes sense to me. I saw it time and again teaching in Philadelphia. Students became distraught and anxious in the face of seemingly surmountable odds. Students completely capable of completing an assignment or understanding an idea shut down or expressed extreme doubt or anxiety. Whereas I could normally connect with and deescalate similar situations with ease, these moments required a level of effort I found deeply surprising.

For me, this creates a question of practice. Even if the vast majority of students are not “wired for worry,” the possibility students in city and urban environments could be more highly predisposed to anxiety illuminates a barrier to learning many teachers probably sensed, but had no name or schema for until now.

Knowing or almost knowing creates an imperative to change.

If the goal of the assembled teachers is to help all students more fully, if elevated anxiety levels impede that learning, and if environment influences those anxiety levels, then it is incumbent upon teachers to design a learning experience that lowers anxiety levels as much as possible.

How can you build a classroom that works against a natural proclivity for anxiety? What could you stop doing immediately to make life less worrisome for your students? What systems can you build to make your classroom, and then your school, a haven of diminished worry?

I have some ideas. I have many more questions. Mostly, I have burning sense that knowing that the designs and structures of learning spaces could be impeding the health and learning of those we are to care for means an ethical imperative to break down those impediments.