Category: TIK365

Things I Know 15 of 365: I like trains

“I think I can. I think I can.”

– The Little Engine that Could

Friday, I was supposed to catch the bus from Philadelphia up to New York.

I was performing in an improv show at the Magnet Theater, so the timing was somewhat important.

When I arrived at the bus’ point of departure – no bus.

Thinking perhaps things had changed, I walked to the other side of the block to see if we were boarding somewhere new.

I turned the corner just in time to see the bus mounting the on-ramp wihtout me. It had left 5 minutes early.

I hurried to the train station to plan an alternative route.

A regional rail train was scheduled to depart 20 minutes later.

I like trains.

I knew where the train would be.

I knew when it would depart.

If it was running late, the station signage would alert me to the delay.

Once on the train, I could ask the conductor at any time when we’d be arriving and he’d be able to tell me.
We arrived two minutes ahead of schedule.

Now, I’m an adaptable guy. I can go with the flow and appreciate when my environment affords me the opportunity to experiment with ideas and actions – to improvise.

Still, my life and my classroom require a certain element of train-ness.

For my students to play with ideas without fear of reproach, they must know certain consistencies exist. They must know we will begin and end on schedule, that I can update them on our progress at any moment and that they are on track. Knowing they are headed safely in the direction of their goals, my students can focus on the journey to understanding and reflect on what happens along the way.

In my professional life, I require some train-ness as well. I need to know those responsible for my conveyance along the journey won’t keep me guessing as to the time and place of departure. I need to know the intended destination will not change after we’ve left the station. I need to be able to ask about our route, our progress and our expected arrival at any point and know I’ll get a straight answer. I need to know we’ll press on when something blocks our way rather than abandoning our route. Moreover, I need to know I’m safe.

The train took more time than the bus. The train was more expensive than the bus.

The train got me where I needed to go.

Things I Know 14 of 365: I need to give students choice

“It is our choices that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

– J.K. Rowling

Not every job moves you to embrace hitting your head against the wall. Teaching is a concusive experience.

My students have been exploring science fiction for the last few weeks. From 24 available titles, they researched and selected 6 they wouldn’t mind reading. From there, I worked my teacherly magic to fit them into groups of 4-5.

They set reading schedules, engaged in book talks and wrote discussion reflections to focus their thinking and investigation of a much-maligned though historically significant genre.

After 5 weeks, I was in a familiar spot of moving from group to group trying to convince them they liked their books. Strong was the temptation to label their reading as lazy and surface. It beat the alternative of acknowledging they might just dislike the books.

“If the Reader’s Bill of Rights tells us we can stop reading any time we want, Mr. Chase. Why do we still have to read this book?”
Stupid student choice combined with empowerment.

“Because sometimes people will make you read things you don’t like, and I’ve decided to help you grow a lifelong love of reading by highlighting some of the most regrettable parts of the act,” seemed a poor reply.

Last week, we studied James Gunn’s “A Worldview of Science Fiction.” The kids played cat’s cradle with the ideas so intently that our discussion carried over to this week.

They were starting to see science fiction could include ideas other than those at work in their respective texts.

I was starting to see, again, students’ thinking about what they read grows anemic when they’re forced to read something they don’t like.

In Thursday’s class, I opened by having the students learn all they could about Battlestar Galactica. We collected notes, I fielded questions, and I queued up episode 1 of season 1 “33.”

At the opening credits, I paused and answered questions about details of the cold opening.

When the show hit the tail end of the unusually slow download and the class let out a collective, “No!” I knew I had them.

Today, we welcomed the former head of PR for the SyFy Channel who now works at SLA’s partner organization The Franklin Institute. A lifelong reader of science fiction and English major in college, she talked about what it took to sell science fiction on contemporary television, the creative process behind shows like Battlestar and Farscape and how she made choices as a reader.

The students talked about what they liked about the previous day’s partial episode and what they wanted when they picked up science fiction.

When Andre, who has been railing against his book for two weeks, raised his hand and asked, “How do you come back after reading a bad sci-fi book?” I knew we were making progress.

The progress came when I remembered what I believe to be true:

  1. Give kids choices.
  2. Show real-world models.
  3. Connect them with passionate adults who know what they’re talking about.

Forcing them to read books they didn’t care about that hadn’t been organically recommended and that they didn’t much care for was really more a test of our rapport than their abilities.

Next time I decided to run repeatedly into walls, I’l try to see the dents I’ve left this time and take them as reminders.

Things I Know 13 of 365: You get what you pay for

I’ll gladly pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today.

– J. Wellington Wimpy

Ordering pizza a few nights ago, I sound like a non-hilarious version of “Who’s on first?”

“Can you repeat the last four number?” says the lady taking my credit card number.

I say the previous four and start to say the next four when she begins to repeat the orignal four back to me and as we’re talking at the same time, no one hears the other.

“I’m sorry,” says she, “Can you call back? This is a horrible connection.”

I hang up and hit redial.

As it’s ringing through again, I want to get frustrated with the connection.

It’s not the first time I’ve had trouble being understood when calling out.

Then, again, I have no room to complain.

I’m using Google Voice through my Gmail account – two services for which I’ve not paid, but use on a regular basis. Were this the halcyon days of wireless communication, after my pizza was ordered, I could have called customer service to report my dissatisfaction with my calls. I would have spent upward of 45 minutes on hold and been awarded the golden fleece of customer service, an account credit.

And, yes, I realize, I could report these inconveniences to Google, but I’d feel silly.

I felt silly yesterday when I tweeted out dissatisfaction with my inability to track changes in Google Docs. The student whose paper I was grading was a comma splice junky, and inserting a comment to denote where each comma should have been was proving an onerous task.  Fed, up, I released the tweet to the world – another service for which I do not pay.

Others with similar frustrations replied with affirmations of their likemindedness. Someone even suggested I check the “revision history.” This was something I’d considered, but it wasn’t what I was looking for.

“I want track changes,” I wanted to explain, “Just like they have in Microsoft Office.” (I know, bite my tongue.)

Still, though, there was something nice about the days when we bought big, beautiful, bug-ridden software packages. They were brimming with new features we’d uncover by mistake and then spend hours trying to disable.

Then, when that one thing we wanted to do wouldn’t work, we could complain in beautiful, consternated poetry and be justified because we had paid.

I get the argument that we’ve paid for Google. Today, when I logged in and saw someone on Facebook had liked my request for revision history on Google Docs because that tweet was sent by Interwebs magic to my status updates, I was reminded what I’ve paid. What were once the asides that filled my days like mental belly button lint are now pieces of data to fuel the machine and generate pageviews.

Yes, we can have the existential debate of what it means to give over our thoughts to corporations so that they can make money, but that’s not the conversation we’re having now.

I’m talking money. I haven’t spent any of it on Google.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with our agreement. My life is easier because of the free.

So, I’ll continue to keep mum about my frustration with the passing of Delicious which has been an invaluable volunteer link-sitter for the past few years. I’ll ignore the next commercial on Pandora that interrupts the songs piping through the station I’ve been doggedly curating for months now. And, when Hulu asks me which lady I’m most interested in watching test drive a new car while I’m catching up on episodes of Stargate: Universe, I’ll click without protest.

Free, has a costs.

Things I Know 12 of 365: Snow Days are different than I thought they’d be

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

– Sammy Cahn

Winter can be an unpleasant experience.

What begins as the clockwork schedule of my morning routine in the fall turns to waking with only minutes to spare in the winter.

Simple things such as taking the dog for a walk, grabbing a piece of fruit as I head out the door, letting the French press have full 4 minutes to seep – these must be forsaken in the winter.

Why, then, was I fully awake and ready this morning at 3:45?

Why was I checking my e-mail and hitting Chrome’s refresh button as though I was expecting the news of one of the finest lessons I’ve ever had the privilege to teach?

Snow day.

Somewhere around 3 inches had accumulated overnight.

Word had it the decision to declare a snow day was made between 4 and 5 a.m.

I didn’t set an alarm or anything. My body knew.

There was no news at 3:45, 4, 4:14, 4: 37 or 4:53.

After that, my memory is a little hazy.

Then, at 6:30, my alarm went off. Then, I hit snooze. Then, I hit snooze. Then, I hit snooze.

Then I forced myself from bed.

Then, the news came.

And the peasants rejoiced.

When I was younger, I imagined my teachers had a party on Snow Days. They met a Chuck E. Cheese’s or Ground Round wearing party hats and blowing noisemakers. Tears for Fears was playing.

It turns out Snow Days (and yes, they’re capitalized) are cause for celebration, but not parties on the part of teachers.

The uniform was my pajamas and my ratty robe which I’m conditioning for when I’m an old man needing to yell at kids to get off my yard.

Instead of Chuck E. Cheese, I was in my living room. Instead of hats and noisemakers I had essays galore to grade.

Ke$ha was playing.

Snow Days as a teacher are not what I pictured when I was younger.

And sure, getting up will be more difficult again tomorrow.

Today, though, was a Snow Day.

Things I Know 11 of 365: College should do college better

Professor: One who speaks in someone else’s sleep.

– Unknown

Art and Society: Theater of the Civil War

Text and Context: Islamic Art and Culture

Traditional and Non-Traditional Grammar

Three courses of my undergraduate studies.

The first two were ordered from the menu of Illinois State University’s General Education program. The third was selected as one of the rhetorical requirements made of an English major.

I selected them because they sounded interesting.

Though I remember scant lessons from each such as my “A” on the paper, “Nouns: More than People, Places, Things an Ideas,” I can’t say that they proved incredibly interesting. They were work, yes, but they didn’t incite my curiosity. It’s a shame, too. I’ve got a pretty wicked curiosity.

College should do college better.

As I write letters of recommendation for our exiting seniors, I want to include a note at the end – just a heads up to whomever inherits our students – “Don’t screw them up.”

After four years of inquiry-driven, project-based learning, our students are ready for the interesting. They are prepared to ask questions and look for answers. They are prepared to do real stuff. They have written grant proposals, interviewed voters, written the histories of their neighborhoods and documented their families’ dearest memories.

Don’t worry about building your new sports complex, your shinier student union, your rec center, your re-sodded quad. Instead, look in your syllabi and ask if, at 18, you’d want to sit and listen to what you have to say.

Don’t mistake me, I’m not going all Mary Poppins here. It doesn’t have to be fun.

It should be, and by God, please make at least a little effort here, interesting.

Some of the best times and biggest mistakes I made in college happened in the offices of the campus paper, The Daily Vidette. What’s more, I didn’t pay tuition to write there. They paid me. It turns out writing for a real audience to inform them and to keep those in power honest drove me to understand the importance of sourcing your information and getting the quotes just right.

It was interesting, and it was important.

If “Don’t screw them up” is too vague, let me be more specific.

Colleges, universities, you don’t own the information anymore.

We’re teaching out students to access it, to analyze it, to ask what they can do with it and then to create with it.
I understand that used to be your job. Well, the first two anyway. You’ve been outsourced.

They’re coming to you hungry, curious and capable. If you assume otherwise, you will lose them. They will see through your undervaluing of their potential and they will lose interest.

We’ll still be down here pushing them up to you, but you’ve got to keep them there.

In order to do that, I think it’s going to take more than promoting your 24-hour Taco Bell.

Things I Know 10 of 365: I’m in the market for hype

Don’t believe the hype…

– Public Enemy

As my grandfather opened his gift, my little brother looked on.

His mother had wrapped it.

Not quite sure what was within the paper, Taylor tolerated the delicate way my grandfather pulled at the tape so as not to tear the paper unnecessarily.

More Christmas presents were in the offing, and that expectation was at war with the manners engrained in my brother.

Finally, a speck of orange peaked from an opening in the paper.

“What!” Taylor yelled.

I had no idea what was going on.

“Oh my gosh, Zachary. ShamWow!”

And he was correct.

My grandfather finished unwrapping his set of chamois cum towel cum sponge. Taylor went ballistic.

“Awwww! I hope I get some too!” And he meant it.

Taylor had bought in to the hype.

It was hard to blame him.

In my early years of teaching, the ShamWow guy was a staple of mealtime conversation.

A towel that can hold up to “12X its weight in liquid?” How does that not inspire a deperate public?

A few minutes later, in a box three times the size necessary, Taylor’s 11-year-old dreams came true. His own set of ShamWow…eh…ShamWows…

“Can we go spill something?”

“Sure,” said his mother and he and my sister Kirstie were off to the kitchen.

It’s been a while since I’ve purchased stock in hype.

I bought some during the 2008 presidential election. But, like many stocks since then, that hype has lost its worth.

Still, I’m thinking of getting back in the market.

A former superintendent of D.C. schools started selling some hype today. Says she’s got the answers to education. It sounded pretty shiny. If I learned anything from my last purchase, though, it’s to be suspicious of those who have more answers than questions.

My next hype won’t be seen on TV. It won’t issue press releases. It won’t ask for my money. My next hype will require an initial payment of hope and  follow-up payments of constant accountability.

When I find my next hype, it will even outshine the German engineering of the ShamWow.

Things I Know 9 of 365: Words have power

Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can kill my soul.

Leaving the locker room after P.E. in the ninth grade, Brian and Travis would call me faggot under their breaths.  I wasn’t sure how they could tell, but I learned to be ashamed of what they saw. Though I made sure to avoid P.E. for the rest of high school, I carried remnants of their words and the shame it caused for many years.

When my sister Rachel was in middle school, she came home in tears one day because her teacher refused to acknowledge that I was Rachel’s brother. “Half-brother,” the teacher insisted to my sister who could not understand why this woman would be so cruel.

December 18, the United States Senate debated the DREAM Act. Those opposed to its passage spoke in angry and fearful voices of the threat those affected would pose to our country. Casting about blanket statements, they maligned my friends and my students. They put politics ahead of the future of children.

In 1884 Mark Twain published a book. Originally intended as a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, this new book changed course around “Chapter 7” and became an imperfect navigation of Twain’s attempt to reconcile the slavery he witnessed as a child and the abolitionist views of his childhood.

As it is as imperfect as anything a person can create, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been the cause of much controversy as of late because it also carries within it one of the great imperfections of America’s past. Some would remove the remembrance of that past rather than see it as a signpost denoting the road ahead.

That road was lit by the terrible light of tragedy Saturday as a gunman opened fire at a Tucson supermarket causing a grief the extent of which we will not know for some time.

If reports are to be believed, the gunman was heeding the words of those seeking power. And, while I need to believe their intent was not to incite violence, I cannot yet forgive their ignorance that their words carried power.

It was the terrible power with which Brian and Travis were experimenting in ninth grade.

It was the extraordinary power my sister’s teacher unknowingly wielded in her determination to be right.

It was the backwardly fearful power with which the Senate cut short the dreams of those striving to make a life in a country of their fate if not their choice.

It was the hateful power Twain chronicled when he invoked one of America’s most poisonous words.

This was the violent power wielded by those who would have power without recognizing the catastrophic effect potential in that which they already command.

In the intervening hours, much has been written about the harmful political rhetoric. We are fooling ourselves if we do not concede government’s representation of its citizens ends with the casting of votes. This rhetoric lives in our schools, our businesses, our friendships and anywhere else words hold sway.

Tomorrow, I will return to my classroom and attempt to further fortify a green zone of words with hopes that I am preparing those in my care to act as ambassadors of speech, using words to build while ever-mindful of their ability to destroy.

Things I Know 8 of 365: Perspective is powerful

Life is a long lesson in humility.

– J.M. Barrie

“Gramma, my baby is turning 17.” My mother to my great-grandmother as my 17th approached.

“Oh, sweetie, my baby just turned 75.”

Perspective is powerful.

I’m finding it difficult to muster the initiative to complete the pedagogically disagreeable grad program to which I was awarded a scholarship.

A former student and first-generation college student is struggling to keep their financial aid for the second semester because of the negligence of an absentee parent.

Perspective is powerful.

SLA must work each year to scrape together the funding to keep our laptop program afloat.

Teachers in the Suba School District of Mbita Kenya must work each day against the spread of HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy and longstanding negative views about the relative worth of women to keep their female students enrolled in school.

Perspective is powerful.

A friend of mine is working to balance their personal life, professional life and intrapersonal life. It’s proving a frustrating endeavor.

My best friend Katy’s sister’s fiance dropped their “Save The Date” notes in the mail Tuesday morning on his way to work. Ten minutes later, his car was T-boned when going through an intersection.

He’s in the hospital, unconscious under heavy sedation.

Yesterday, he responded to stress stimuli for the first time.

Today is his birthday.

I shared what’s going on with Katy’s family with my friend struggling with balance.

“I need to get over myself,” she said.

Perspective is powerful.

Things I Know 7 of 365: I can’t curse

Go ahead and swear—it might make you feel better…

– Jeffrey Hill, The English Blog

Words amaze me.

They always have.

Every once in a while, one of my students will ask me if I always knew I wanted to be an English teacher.

In my youngest years, I wanted to be an artist or a stand-up comedian.

In eighth grade, I picked a profession that gave me the better parts of both of those options.

I’ve been teaching for 8 years.

And, for as much as I am able to master and throw around words, one set has always given me trouble.

I can’t curse.

I blame my upbringing.

Every once in a while, my mom would let loose with a “You little shit,” but even then it was full of incredulity of me beating her at a game of Scrabble.

That’s a lie.

I never beat my mom at Scrabble.

When I got to college, I decided that part of the requisite re-inventing of myself would be taking ownership of the lexicon that had eluded me for so long.

Every once in a while, I’d throw out an f-bomb or some derivative thereof.

Usually, this was surrounding the playing of Mario Kart on the Gamecube.

After about a month, through a friendervention, I was asked to stop.

“You just can’t pull it off,” they told me.

“You’re too nice.”

It would have been the perfect moment to prove them wrong, but I couldn’t.

Just before winter break, one of my classes was studying Steven Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

I was reading it aloud.

At the top of one class, a student approached me, “Please don’t read the cuss words, Mr. Chase.”

Worried I’d offended him, I asked why not, if everything was ok.

“Oh, yeah. I love the book. I just don’t like to think of you saying those words.”

I’d been found out.

I’ve tried a few experiments in the intervening weeks.

On the phone with a friend, I’ll drop in a curse word in place of the adjective I’d actually been thinking.

The conversation has proceeded normally. Then, I collect data.

“Hey, do you remember when I cursed?”

“Huh?”

“A few minutes ago, I cursed. Do you remember that?”

“Oh. Sure. Yeah.”

“Good. Did it sound authentic?”

“What?”

“When I cursed, did it sound like someone who knows how to curse?”

“Um, I guess so.”

“Awesome.”

I’m getting better.

Still, I’ve had to come to the conclusion that, like French, this is a language I’ll likely never master.

I listen to the lady a few doors down yelling at our neighbors on the weekends and wonder at the brush with which she draws from her diverse pallet of expletives.

She is a foul-mouthed Jedi, and I envy her.

She’s Lenny Bruce, Sandra Bernhard and every episode of The Wire rolled into one.

Faced with unsatisfactory answers in conversation, she constructs linguistic cannons from her canon of vulgarity.

I’d be reduced to reason and likely get nowhere.

Still, I’m working on it – working damned hard.

…I’ve a long way to go.

Things I Know 6 of 365: I am loved

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.

– Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

I’ve always known I’m loved.

Always.

Though my parents divorced when I was very young and I’ve never seen their relationship toward one another as a warm one, I was always neutral territory.

For all they disagreed on, they agreed on loving me.

Writing those words seems silly to me.

Of course I was loved. Of course my parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles told me.

And yet, in movies and books, there are moments of revelation where the protagonist’s mother or father (usually father) says, “I love you,” and the protagonist admits it’s the first time this has occurred.

I’ve read or watched more of these moments than I know.

Not until recently, did it strike me that this might not be a fictional device akin to time travel or a cloak of invisibility.

There are children who never actually hear their families tell them they are loved.

Odds are I teach some of them.

Certainly, I could assuage the sadness of this statement by telling myself these children are shown they are loved.

It’s not the same.

My grandmother was showing me she loved me when she read me just one more story at bedtime. The act was exponentially magnified, however, when she said, “And I will always love you – no matter what.”

I knew it was true the way I knew it was true when any other adult in my family admitted I was the recipient of their unconditional love.

Without doubt, it built me to the person I am today.

Because this is my paradigm, I am still struggling with the idea any adult could resist telling the children in their care how much they love them.

I get to spend only an hour with these kids and cannot help but wonder at who they are and all they can do. I can’t imagine how anyone could be keeping their love for these people to themselves.

If any children, no matter how old, doubt they are loved, I want to believe that some adult will intervene and tell them the truth that has been so often told to me.

Would you do that, please?